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ILLINOIS 
PIONEER 
DAYS 


By 
ELBERT    WALLER,    A.M. 


Published  by 

E.  B.  LEWIS, 

Litchfield,  Illinois. 

1918. 


1818  1918 


ILLINOIS 
PIONEER 
DAYS 


By 
ELBERT  WALLER,  A.M. 


Published  by 

E.  B.  LEWIS, 

Litchfield,  Illinois. 

1918. 


Copyright  1918  by  Elbert  Waller. 


&&&fr&^^ 


TO  THE  SACRED  MEMORY  OF 
THE  BRAVE  PIONEERS  WHO 
MADE  THIS  GREAT  STATE 
POSSIBLE,  THIS  LITTLE  BOOK 
IS  AFFECTIONATELY  DEDI- 
CATED. 


£#<B*#***B><H>*>*KK23^^ 


*KKttBttB}*KB«BttBCH^^ 


CONTENTS. 

Page 

1.  Where  the  West  Begins 6 

2.  Pioneer  Home  Life 7 

3.  A  Pioneer  Church 17 

4.  A  Pioneer  School 23 

J      5.     The  Pioneer  Mother 28 

6.  Going  to  Mill 31 

7.  A  Ranger's  Adventure 35 

el      8.     "Lasses"    .  41 

9.     Buck-Skin  Breeches  ...  43 
7^ 

_  10.     Pioneer  Boatmen 45 

11.     Camp  Meetings  50 

H  12.     Witchcraft 52 

\ 

2f  13.     Kaskaskia  Cursed  54 

cj 

5  14.     Freak  Lawsuits  of  Pioneer  Days 58 

I  15.     Monex  of  the  Good  Old  Days 62 

Settling  Their  Differences  ...  64 

A  Trapper's  Predicament  66 

18.  Pioneer  Hash  67 

19.  Song  of  the  Pioneers 70 

20.  A  Pioneer  Vocabulary 72 


INTRODUCTION. 

This  is  Illinois'  Centennial  Year,  a  time  most 
fitting  to  look  back  down  the  years  and  think  of 
the  labors  and  sacrifices  of  those  who  came  into  a 
land  of  savages  and  transformed  it  into  a  land  of 
the  highest  type  of  civilization.  Much  of  the  won- 
derful history  of  the  brave  pioneers  of  these  mighty 
days  is  forever  lost.  With  the  idea  of  helping  to 
preserve  that  yet  known  and  transmit  it  to  the 
rising  generation,  we  are  presenting  this  little 
volume.  We  offer  no  excuse  and  no  other  explana- 
tion for  its  publication.  If  those  who  read  this 
book  are  led  to  a  greater  realization  of  the  won- 
derful work  of  the  pioneer  men  and  women,  it  will 
have  served  its  purpose. 

Respectfully  submitted, 

THE  AUTHOR. 


A  PRAIRIE  SCHOONER. 


WHERE  THE  WEST  BEGINS. 

Out  where  the  hand  clasps  a  little  stronger, 
Out  where  the  smile  dwells  a  little  longer, 

That's  where  the  West  begins. 
Out  where  the  sun  is  a  little  brighter, 
Where  the  snows  that  fall  are  a  trifle  whiter, 
Where  the  bonds  of  home  are  a  wee  bit  tighter, 

That's  where  the  West  begins. 

Out  where  the  skies  are  a  trifle  bluer, 
Out  where  friendship's  a  little  truer, 

That's  where  the  West  begins. 
Out  where  a  fresher  breeze  is  blowing, 
Where  there's  laughter  in  every  streamlet  flowing, 
Where  there's  more  of  reaping  and  less  of  sowing. 

That's  where  the  West  begins. 

Out  where  the  world  is  in  the  making, 
Where  fewer  hearts  in  despair  are  aching, 

That's  where  the  West  begins. 
Where  there's  more  of  singing  and  less  of  sighing, 
Where  there's  more  of  giving  and  less  of  buying, 
And  a  man  makes  friends  without  half  trying, 

That's  where  the  West  begins. 

(From  "America,"  a  pioneer  pageant  play.) 

By  R.  H.  Ward. 


PIONEER  DAYS 


PIONEER  HOME  LIFE. 

When  the  pioneers  came  in  search  of  new  homes 
several  families  traveled  together  and  they  usually 
selected  some  well-wooded  spot  near  some  stream. 
When  they  were  once  located,  no  time  was  lost  but 
all  hands  got  busy.  Often,  by  the  first  night,  they 
had  an  improvised  building  in  which  the  women 
and  children  were  sheltered  and  in  a  few  days  they 
had  houses  for  all  and  a  nice  little  clearing 
around  each. 

The  houses  were  usually  about  sixteen  by  twenty 
feet  or  hardly  so  large.  The  walls  were  of.  logs 
that  ranged  from  eight  to  twelve  inches  in  diam- 
eter. They  were  built  in  the  form  of  a  pen  with 
notches  in  each  log  at  the  corners  to  make  them 
lie  solid  and  closer.  Then  pieces  were  sawed  out  of 
one  side  for  the  door.  The  frame  of  the  roof  was 
formed  by  shortening  the  logs  at  each  end,  thus 
necessitating  bringing  the  logs  of  the  sides  closer 
together  until  the  last  one  would  form  the  comb  of 
the  roof.  It  was  covered  with  clapboards,  which 
were  usually  about  four  feet  long,  made  from  large 
trees  and  split  with  an  instrument  they  call  a  frow 
(fro).  The  roof  was  sometimes  nailed  on,  and  at 
other  times  it  was  fastened  on  with  poles  laid 
crosswise  of  the  boards.  The  floor,  if  they  had  any, 
was  made  of  puncheons,  which  were  timbers  a  foot 


8  PIONEER  DAYS 

or  more  in  diameter,  cut  into  lengths  of  eight  or 
ten  feet,  split  open,  and  the  flat  side  smoothed.  They 
were  sometimes  laid  flat  on  the  ground  and  at  other 
times  they  were  notched  at  the  ends  and  laid  on 
cross  logs  called  sleepers.  The  door  was  quite  gen- 
erally made  of  planks  split  out  like  the  clapboards 
of  the  roof,  which  were  then  pegged  to  two  cross- 
pieces,  one  end  of  each  forming  a  hinge.  The  latch 
was  on  the  inside  and  would  drop  into  a  notch  in  a 
peg  and  securely  hold  the  door,  but  could  be  lifted 
from  the  outside  by  means  of  a  string  extending 
out  thru  a  hole.  If  the  "latch-string"  was  hang- 
ing out,  people  were  welcome  to  lift  the  latch  and 
come  in.  In  one  end  there  was  a  place  about  five 
feet  square  cut  in  the  walls  for  a  "fire-place," 
which  consisted  of  three  sides  of  a  pen  about  three 
by  five  feet  built  in  this  opening  to  the  top  of  it, 
attached  to  the  sides  by  "notching  in",  then  lined 
with  stone  and  well  plastered  with  mud.  The  fire-, 
place  terminated  in  a  chimney  which  was  built  of 
sticks,  then  plastered  with  mud.  This  was  the 
"stick-and-clay  chimney."  They  had  no  glass  for 
windows,  so  they  just  sawed  out  a  piece  of  log  and 
put  a  piece  of  greased  paper  in  the  opening. 

The  furniture  was  all  home-made.  The  bed  was 
formed  as  follows:  They  first  took  a  pole  long 
enough  to  extend  from  the  floor  to  the  roof, 
trimmed  the  limbs  off,  cutting  each  about  six  inches 
from  the  pole,  so  as  to  leave  several  hooks  which 
might  serve  as  a  sort  of  clothes  rack.  This  pole 


PIONEER  DAYS  9 

was  then  set  about  four  feet  from  one  side  at  a 
back  corner  and  six  feet  from  the  end.  A  pole  was 
laid  from  a  crack  in  the  end  to  the  first  fork  in  this 
upright  pole,  about  two  feet  high,  and  from  that 
to  the  side  wall,  clapboards  or  something  of  the  sort 
were  laid  across  and  the  bedstead  was  made.  On 
this  they  usually  put  a  bed  made  of  straw  or  corn 
husks,  or  even  grass  or  leaves.  In  better  days  this 
was  supplied  with  feathers.  The  table  was  a  crude 
affair.  They  had  no  chairs  but  they  made  stools 
by  boring  three  holes  in  a  block  of  wood  and  put- 
ting pegs  in  for  the  legs.  Sometimes  they  fixed  up 
something  like  a  puncheon  with  four  legs  as  a 
bench  for  the  children.  They  had  no  cook  stove, 
but  usually  a  large  skillet  with  an  iron  lid  was  a 
substantial  part  of  their  equipment,  tho  they  did 
not  always  have  that.  To  do  their  baking,  they 
made  a  heavy  bed  of  coals  on  the  hearth,  set  the 
skillet  on  them,  put  their  food  in,  put  the  lid  on, 
and  then  covered  that  with  coals.  Their  light  w.as 
usually  a  tallow  candle,  but  sometimes  they  were 
not  so  fortunate  as  to  have  the  tallow  and  they  had 
to  have  a  grease  lamp.  The  dishes  also  were  nearly 
always  home-made  wooden  bowls  and  noggins.  The 
more  fortunate  ones  only  had  a  few  pewter  dishes. 
Many  had  no  knives  or  forks.  If  the  former  were 
lacking,  the  hunting  knife  was  called  into  service, 
and  if  the  latter  a  sharp  stick  answered  the  pur- 
pose. Clocks  were  very  scarce.  The  old  rooster 
would  crow  just  as  day  began  to  dawn,  so  they 


10  PIONEER  DAYS 

needed  no  alarm.  They  all  learned  to  tell  time 
pretty  accurately  by  the  sun,  so  what  need  had 
they  for  a  clock?  They  had  no  matches.  Some- 
times they  would  start  fire  by  striking  a  flint  so 
as  to  throw  the  sparks  on  a  piece  of  toe,  but  some- 
times the  toe  was  scarce  and  they  would  go  a  mile 
or  more  to  a  neighbor's  to  borrow  fire.  Many  of 
them  kept  fire  thru  the  winter  and  summer  by 
keeping  a  log  in  the  clearing  burning. 

The  food  was  plain  but  very  wholesome.  The 
corn-pone  and  the  johnny-cake  were  served  for 
dinner.  As  hard  as  they  worked  they  needed  meat 
and  very  rarely  were  they  without  it.  Sometimes 
it  was  venison.  At  other  times  it  was  turkey  (wild) 
squirrel,  rabbit,  ''possum"  or  "pattridge"  (par- 
tridge or  quail).  Those  who  had  cows  furnished 
good  sweet  milk  and  buttermilk  to  everybody  in 
the  neighborhood.  Mush  and  milk  was  the  com- 
mon supper  dish,  and  if  they  got  tired  of  that  they 
could  vary  it  with  "hog  and  hominy".  They  drank 
much  milk  and  during  the  spring  months  they 
drank  sassafras  tea.  They  raised  beans  and  pump- 
kins in  the  corn.  They  made  sugar  and  molasses 
from  the  sap  of  maple  trees,  and  they  often  cut  a 
bee-tree,  getting  sometimes  several  gallons  of 
honey. 

The  majority  of  the  pioneers  were  poor,  but  hon- 
est and  respectable,  hence  poverty  carried  with  it 
no  sense  of  degradation  or  humiliation  like  that 
felt  by  the  poor  of  our  'age.  They  lived  in  just 


PIONEER  DAYS  11 

humble  cabins,  but  they  were  their  own,  built  by 
their  own  hands.  They  had  few  of  the  conveniences 
of  modern  life  and  they  were  destitute  of  many  of 
the  things  we  now  consider  absolutely  necessary, 
but  they  were  industrious,  patient  and  cheerful  and 
hopefully  looked  forward  to  better  days.  As  noted 
above,  they  had  plenty  of  food  and  it  was  whole- 
some. They  had  a  good  appetite  and  a  clear  con- 
science, and  as  they  sat  down  to  the  rude  table  to 
eat  from  wooden  or  pewter  dishes,  they  enjoyed  it. 
The  bread  they  ate  was  from  corn  they  had  both 
grown  and  ground,  or  it  was  made  of  wheat  they 
had  grown  and  by  a  very  laborious  process  flailed 
out  and  ground  ready  for  bread.  Some  of  them 
had  graters  on  which  they  grated  their  corn  and 
wheat,  but  others  had  various  forms  of  hand-mills. 
They  walked  the  green  carpet  of  the  forests  and 
fields  around  them,  not  with  the  mien  of  a  vagrant, 
but  with  the  independent  air  and  elastic  step  of  a 
self-respecting  freeman. 

In  nothing  have  there  been  greater  changes  than 
in  their  dress.  The  women  usually  wore  a  home- 
made dress  of  what  they  called  linsey-woolsey,  but 
occasionally  the  more  fortunate  ones  could  get 
calico  from  "back  east"  and  wear  that  on  Sundays 
or  on  dress  occasions.  They  wore  hoops,  which 
made  the  dress  spread  out  at  the  bottom.  Some- 
times they  had  sleeves  made  very  large  and  stuffed 
with  feathers  so  that  if  the  arms  were  extended  at 
right  angles  to  the  body,  the  sleeves  were  about  as 


12  PIONEER  DAYS 

high  as  the  head.  When  the  boys  used  to  hug  the 
girls  (and  they  say  they  did),  they  called  it 
"squeezing  the  pillows."  On  their  heads  they 
wore  sunbonnets  in  the  summer  and  shawls  in  win- 
ter. If  they  didn't  go  barefooted  they  wore  moc- 
casins, which  were  made  of  a  piece  of  deer-skin, 
which  were  laced  along  the  back  of  the  heel  and  the 
"calf"  of  the  leg  and  also  over  the  toes  and  instep 
up  along  the  shin.  The  more  artistic  ones  ran  about 
a  foot  high  and  the  tops  were  cut  into  strings, 
which  were  painted  in  various  colors  and  allowed 
to  dangle  about  the  ankles.  The  girls  often  car- 
ried their  moccasins  to  church,  putting  them  on  at 
the  door.  The  men  wore  hunting  shirts,  breeches, 
moccasins  and  a  cap.  The  hunting  shirt  was  a 
loose  sort  of  a  blouse.  It  opened  in  front  and  was 
large  enough  to  serve  as  a  sort  of  pouch  in  which 
to  carry  lunch  and  other  things  necessary  for  the 
trip.  It  was  usually  belted  down  and  in  this  belt 
he  always  carried  a  hunting-knife  and  sometimes 
a  tomahawk.  On  dress  occasions  he  wore  a  short 
cape  over  this  coat,  which  terminated  about  his 
shoulders  in  a  fringe  of  bright  colors.  His  cap  was 
made  of  coon-skin  made  so  that  the  tail  served  as  an 
ornament  dangling  from  the  top  or  down  behind. 
His  "breeches"  were  of  buck-skin.  In  winter  he 
wore  the  hairy  side  in  and  in  summer  he  reversed 
it.  On  at  least  one  occasion  the  "buck-skin  breech- 
es" served  another  purpose.  Reverend  James 
Lemen  of  Monroe  County  and  his  son  were  out 


PIONEER  DAYS  13 

plowing  and  left  their  harness  in  the  field  at  noon. 
The  boy,  hoping  to  get  a  vacation,  hid  one  of  the 
collars.  The  father  was  resourceful  enough  and  at 
once  took  off  his  breeches,  stuffed  them  with  grass 
and  this  served  as  a  collar  for  the  afternoon. 

They  had  plenty  of  work  to  do  and  if  they  got 
tired  they  worked  at  something  else  until  they 
rested.  The  women  had  work  around  the  house 
daubing  the  building,  getting  wood,  grinding  corn, 
cultivating  the  truck-patch,  dressing  skins  and 
making  it  into  clothing,  or  carding,  weaving,  and 
spinning  cotton  or  wool  and  making  that  into 
clothing,  knitting  socks  and  stockings,  milking  the 
cow  and  teaching  the  children  to  read.  When  she 
got  this  done  she  went  and  piled  brush  or  some- 
thing of  the  kind  until  she  rested,  if  she  "was  tired. 
The  men  cleared  the  ground  ready  for  crops,  some- 
times at  the  rate  of  ten  or  fifteen  acres  per  year, 
by  cutting  down  all  the  smaller  trees  and  "dead- 
ening" the  larger  ones.  They  made  rails  and  built 
a  fence  around  the  fields,  then  plowed  the  ground 
with  a  home-made  plow  and  cultivated  the  crops. 
Besides  all  this,  they  must  "all-hands"  protect  the 
chickens,  geese,  ducks,  sheep  and  hogs  against  the 
opossums,  raccoons,  panthers,  wild-cats,  and 
wolves,  and  it  often  happened  that  they  had  to  pro- 
tect themselves  against  the  Indians. 

They  were  good  at  combining  business  with 
pleasure.  In  the  spring  they  had  log-rollings, 
which  everybody — men,  women  and  children — at- 


14  PIONEER  DAYS 

tended.  This  was  an  occasion  for  everybody  (•> 
help  and  it  was  a  source  of  great  pride  to  a  imm 
if  he  could  pull  all  the  others  down  at  the  end  of  a 
"hand-spike".  The  women  took  their  spinning 
wheels  along,  and  it  was  a  great  day  for  them  as 
well.  They  had  many  amusements  which  were  an 
essential  part  of  their  education.  The  boy  soo1- 
passed  the  bow  and  arrow  stage,  and  before  bo 
reached  his  teens  he  could  handle  the  rifle  well. 
They  often  had  "shooting-matches,"  and  they  de- 
veloped great  skill  in  marksmanship.  They  learned 
the  tricks  of  the  animals  and  could  imitate  them 
all,  from  the  "gobble"  of  a  turkey  to  the  howl  of  a 
wolf.  They  learned  how  to  decoy  the  panther  from 
his  hiding  place  and  how  to  call  a  deer  by  day  or  to 
"shine"  him  by  night. 

Boys  went  courting  in  those  days.  Among  them 
there  was  no  aristocracy,  so  there  was  but  little 
looking  for  wealth  or  influence.  They  generally 
married  young  and  started  out  in  life  for  them- 
selves. In  those  days  you  could  tell  when  young 
people  were  going  to  get  married  by  the  way  a 
young  man  tried  to  prepare  a  few  home-made  tools 
of  his  own  and  also  by  the  fact  that  the  girl  was 
taking  an  additional  interest  in  drying  fruits,  mak- 
ing quilts,  etc.  On  the  wedding  day  all  the  neigh- 
borhood was  there.  The  ceremony  was  performed 
at  noon  and  then  came  the  big  dinner.  In  some 
neighborhoods  this  was  followed  by  dancing  the 
"fox-trot"  and  the  "country  (contra)  dance"  un- 


PIONEER  DAYS  15 

til  daylight  the  next  morning.  The  old  fiddler  was 
in  the  height  of  his  glory.  In  other  localities  where 
they  did  not  believe  in  dancing,  they  spent  the 
afternoon  in  the  various  sports  common  to  pioneer 
life,  and  departed  to  their  homes  before  night  only 
to  assemble  at  the  home  of  the  father  of  the  groom 
for  an  "infair"  dinner  the  next  day.  Within  the 
next  week  a  place  for  the  house  was  selected  and 
the  neighbors  built  a  house  for  the  new  couple,  and 
after  a  "house-wTarming"  which  consisted  of  an 
all-night  party  or  dance,  the  young  couple  moved 
in  and  were  "at  home." 

If  any  of  them  became  sick,  the  good  old  mothers 
were  the  doctors.  If  they  could  not  be  cured,  it 
was  often  ascribed  to  the  ill-will  of  a  witch.  If 
they  died,  the  preacher  was  there  to  say  the  last 
sad  words  at  the  grave.  The  neighbors  were  the 
undertakers. 

"Yet  e'en  these  bones  from  insult  to  protect. 

Some  frail  memorial  still  erected  nigh, 
With  uncouth  rhymes  and  shapeless  sculpture  decked. 

Implores  the  passing  tribute  of  a  sigh. 

Their  names,  the  years  spelt  by  the  unlettered  muse. 

The  place  of  fame  and  elegy  supply. 
And  many  a  holy  text  around  she  strews. 

That  teach  the  rustic  moralist  to  die." 

As  the  years  rolled  on,  fields  were  cleared  up,  the 
whip-saw  and  the  saw-mill  Avere  introduced,  better 
homes  were  built,  churches  were  organized  and 
schools  were  established.  Various  enterprises  were 


16  PIONEER  DAYS 

started  up  and  people  became  specialists  in  differ- 
ent lines.  The  Indian  and  many  of  the  wild  ani- 
mals disappeared.  The  pioneer  doctor  succeeded 
the  old  "witch-master"  and  the  people  generally 
led  an  easier  life.  In  our  imagination  we  can  look 
back  over  half  a  century  and,  on  a  winter  evening, 
see  the  old  pioneer  grandmother  sitting  by  the  huge 
fire-place,  knitting  away,  while  the  children  are 
gathered  around  a  table  and  by  the  light  of  a  tal- 
low candle  are  studying  their  lessons,  and  the  pio- 
neer grandfather  sits  in  meditative  mood.  Finally, 
when  lessons  are  gotten  the  children  call  on  Grand- 
father to  tell  them  a  story  and  out  of  the  depth  of 
his  heart  he  tells  them  a  story  before  they  scamper 
off  to  bed  to  have  a  frightful  dream  about  battles 
with  the  Indians  or  of  the  good  times  at  some  of 
their  gatherings. 


PIONEER  DAYS  17 


A  PIONEER  CHURCH. 

Among  the  first  buildings  to  be  erected  in  any 
frontier  community  was  a  "meeting  house".  It 
was  often  used  as  a  home  for  women  and  children 
until  the  pioneer  cabins  could  be  built.  It  was  then 
used  for  church,  or  as  they  generally  called  it, 
"meeting".  In  the  same  building  they  also  had 
other  community  gatherings,  even  using  it  as  a 
school  house  sometimes.  They  were  never  expen- 
sive and  the  church  was  never  pressed  for  "offer- 
ings" or  should  I  say,  "collections"?  They  cared 
not  for  finery  and  the  church  was  never  financially 
embarrassed. 

In  the  earlier  days  they  were  usually  built  of 
logs  but  sometimes  of  lumber  sawed  with  a  whip- 
saw  or  small  saw-mill,  operated  by  horse-power  or 
a  water  wheel.  All  the  labor  was  donated  and  they 
gladly  gave  it  as  a  labor  of  love.  Of  course  they 
gave  the  material  also. 

They  were  given  such  names  as  Mount  Olive, 
Mount  Pleasant,  Mount  Pisgah,  Mount  Moriah, 
Mount  Nebo,  Pleasant  Grove,  Bethel,  New  Jerusa- 
lem, Sharon,  etc.  Sometimes  they  were  nicknamed 
by  the  irreverent  and  given  such  appellations  as 
"*God's  Barn,"  "Board  Shanty,"  and  "Hell's  Half 
Acre,"  and  these  names  became  more  common  than 
the  real  ones. 


18  PIONEER  DAYS 

Old  Sharon  was  a  rural  church  located  in  a  splen- 
didly shaded  grove.  It  was  a  fairly  well  construct- 
ed frame  building  about  thirty  by  forty  feet,  and 
every  piece  was  worked  out  by  hand.  Even  the 
flooring,  ceiling  and  weather-boarding  were  hand- 
dressed.  The  altar  or  pulpit,  as  it  was  called,  was 
a  good  piece  of  architecture  and  was  approached 
by  "three  upright  regular  steps". 

The  seats  were  common  benches.  The  corner  to 
the  right  of  the  preacher  was  called  the  "Amen 
Corner,"  and  was  reserved  for  the  old  men.  If  the 
old  church  were  still  standing,  I  could  go  back  and 
hang  my  hat  on  the  very  nail  on  which  my  father 
used  to  hang  his.  For  lack  of  a  better  name  the 
opposite  corner  was  nicknamed  the  "A  Woman 
Corner"  by  some  wag.  On  one  side  they  had  seats 
for  the  boys  and  men,  and  on  the  other  they  had 
seats  for  the  girls  and  women,  and  let  us  say  that 
this  rule  was  sacredly  adhered  to.  In  one  case  a 
young  man  went  in  and  sat  down  with  his  best  girl. 
The  preacher  politely  told  him  to  move  to  the  other 
side.  He  was  reluctant  but  obeyed. 

Let  me  digress  here  long  enough  to  say  that  the 
boys  seldom  accompanied  their  girls  to  church,  but 
often  went  home  with  them  from  the  night  service. 
Sometimes  they  had  no  previous  arrangements  and 
had  some  very  ingenious  ways  of  asking  for  the 
privilege  of  accompanying  the  girl  home.  A  boy 
might  say,  "Do  you  love  chicken?"  and  if  she 
wished  to  give  a  favorable  reply,  she  said,  "Yes, 


JO 
3KJ  JO 

iiHd>AYS  19 

sir".  He  would  then  extend  an  arm  and  say,  "Take 
a  wing".  Again  he  might  say,  "The  moon  shines 
bright,  Can  I  go  home  with  you  tonight"?  If  fa- 
vorable, the  answer  was,  "The  stars  do  too.  I 
don't  care  if  you  do."  Not- every  fellow  of  the 
crowd  that  stood  in  waiting  at  the  door  like  a  gang 
of  unweaned  calves  was  favorably  considered  and 
a  negative  answer  was  called  a  "sack".  Most  of 
the  boys  accepted  that  without  a  word  and,  greatly 
embarrassed,  got  out  of  the  crowd  as  soon  as  they 
could,  but  others  were  "game"  and  gave  rejoind- 
ers. Once  at  least  this  dialog  took  place : 

Boy  :     ' '  Can  I  see  you  home  tonight  1 ' ' 

Girl:     "No,  sir." 

Boy:     " Give  me  a  string. " 

Girl:     "Ain't  got  any." 

Boy:  "Give  me  your  garter,  then.  That  will 
do." 

I  know  the  name  of  that  youngster,  but  please 
ask  me  no  questions,  for  I  shall  not  tell.  The  law 
grants  immunity  from  giving  evidence  against  our- 
selves.- Another  boy  wished  to  compromise  the 
matter  and  said  he  wanted  to  go  only  as  far  as 
Uncle  Mack's. 

Of  course,  they  had  to  be  governed  by  the 
weather,  but  in  the  summer,  in  particular,  the 
young  men  gathered  in  the  grove  and  "swapped 
yarns"  until  some  one  in  the  house  began  a  song 
which  was  the  signal  to  come  in  for  the  services 


20  PIONEER  DAYS 

to  begin.  Some  of  the  young  men  would  come  in, 
but  the  rowdies  stayed  outside.  The  sermon  was 
usually  very  long,  the  services  often  lasting  from 
11:00  o'clock  until  after  1:00  o'clock.  Once  a 
young  fellow  came  out  from  towrn  hoping  to  go 
home  with  one  of  the  girls,  and  he  tarried  with  the 
gang  outside.  If  nothing  else  made  him  unpopular, 
the  simple  fact  that  he  was  wanting  to  pay  his  re- 
spects to  one  of  the  ''country  girls"  would  make 
him  so,  and  he  had  to  be  the  victim  of  all  their 
jokes.  He  expressed  a  wonder  at  the  length  of  the 
sermon  and  asked  how  long  it  lasted.  They  told 
him  that  it  would  last  until  time  to  go  home  and  do 
up  the  chores  late  in  the  evening.  He  believed  it 
and  left  just  in  time  for  some  other  fellow  to  get 
to  go  home  with  the  girl. 

They  had  no  organ  and  no  choir  (war  depart- 
ment of  the  church),  but  usually  some  old  man  with 
his  coarse  gutteral  voice,  or  a  woman  with  her  high- 
pitched  nasal  voice  led  the  singing.  There  were 
few  song  books  and  the  preacher  would  "line  the 
hymns",  that  is,  he  would  read  a  line  or  a  stanza 
and  then  they  would  sing  it,  and  thus  on  thru  the 
song.  In  many  churches  there  was,  and  in  a  few 
there  is  yet,  a  prejudice  against  any  kind  of  musi- 
cal instrument  in  the  church,  and  it  was  so  strong 
that  some  times  it  was  a  rock  upon  -which  the 
church  was  wrecked. 

Sometimes  they  had  revivals  and  while  some 
preacher  or  layman  would  be  praying,  others  would 


PIONEER  DAYS  21 

be  saying  such  things  as  "Lord  grant  it,"  "Yes, 
Lord,"  and  "Amen,"  all  in  a  groaning  tone  that 
people  could  hardly  understand.  I  presume  the 
Lord  did.  Once,  while  such  a  performance  was 
going  on  a  venerable,  gray-haired  brother  was  pick- 
ing his  nose  and  saying  some  of  these  things.  It 
looked  like  he  was  taking  on  about  his  nose.  Some 
boys  saw  it  and  laughed.  One  of  the  deacons  rep- 
rimanded them.  His  attention  was  called  to  it  and 
even  he  had  to  laugh. 

The  preacher  was  sometimes  one  of  their  number 
but  usually  he  was  some  man  with  a  great  big  heart 
and  little  ambition  to  accumulate  money,  and 
whose  reputation  as  a  preacher  extended  far  be- 
yond the  confines  of  his  own  community.  He  was 
always  reverent  and  sincere  and  his  every  word 
and  act  proved  it.  The  best  people  of  the  com- 
munity loved  him  and  the  others  respected  him. 
He  always  had  the  power  to  drive  his  message  di- 
rect to  his  hearers.  "A  man  he  was  to  all  the 
country  dear,"  but  he  was  not  getting  rich  at  forty, 
pounds  a  year,  for  the  collections  were  usually 
small. 

"But  in  his  duty  prompt  at  every  call, 

He  watched  and  wept,  he  prayed  and  felt  for  all; 

And  as  a  bird  each  fond  endearment  tries, 

To  tempt  its  new-fledged  off-spring  to  the  skies, 

He  tried  each  art,  reproved  each  dull  delay, 

Allured  to  brighter  worlds  and  led  the  way. 

"Beside  the  bed  where  parting  life  was  laid, 
And  sorrow,  guilt  and  pain  by  turns  dismayed, 
The  reverend  champion  stood.     At  his  control. 


22  PIONEER  DAYS 

Despair  and  anguish  fled  the  struggling  soul; 
Comfort  came  down  the  trembling  wretch  to  raise, 
And  his  last  falt'ring  accents  whispered  praise, 

"At  church  with  meek  and  unaffected  grace, 
His  looks  adorned  the  venerable  place; 
Truth  from  his  lips  prevailed  with  double  sway, 
And  fools  who  came  to  scoff  remained  to  pray. 
The  service  past,  around  the  pious  man, 
With  steady  zeal  each  honest  rustic  ran. 

His  ready  smile,  a  parent's  warmth  expressed; 
Their  welfare  pleased  him  and  their  cares  distressed; 
To  them,  his  heart,  his  love,  his  grief  were  given. 
But  all  his  serious  thoughts  had  rest  in  Heaven. 

As  some  tall  cliff  that  lifts  its  awful  form. 
Swells  from  the  vale  and  midway  leaves  the  stor<m, 
Tho  round  its  breast  the  rolling  clouds  are  spread, 
Et-ernal  sunshine  settles  on  its  head." 

I  have  described  here  my  old  home  church.  Of 
course,  my  experience  does  not  date  back  to  pio- 
neer days,  but  many  of  the  old  customs  still  pre- 
vailed and  I  recall  that  my  father  and  other  old 
settlers  told  me  many  of  the  things  that  made  the 
memory  of  the  old  church  a  sacred  memory  to  them. 
This  church  was  built  about  1840,  and  destroyed 
by  a  cyclone  in  1889.  A  new  one  was  erected  on 
the  spot,  but  is  now  unused.  I  believe  the  rural 
church  entered  more  into  the  social  and  religious 
life  of  the  communities  than  did  others.  They 
have  served  their  purpose  and,  having  done  so,  are 
passing  swiftly  away. 


PIONEER  DAYS  23 


A  PIONEER  SCHOOL. 

In  pioneer  days,  as  now,  four  things  were  essen- 
tial to  a  good  school.  They  were  the  material 
equipment,  the  parents,  the  children  and  the 
teacher.  . 

The  idea  was  not  by  any  means  general  that  the 
girls  needed  an  education  and,  rough  and  rugged 
as  the  people  were,  they  thought  that  any  place  was 
good  enough  for  a  school  house.  Sometimes  it  was 
an  abandoned  building.  It  may  have  been  an  old 
corn  crib.  In  one  instance,  at  least,  it  was  an  old 
stable.  Little  attention  was  paid  to  heat,  light  or 
ventilation.  If  they  did  not  burn  or  freeze  that 
was  sufficient.  They  were  not  comfortably  seated 
and  no  attention  was  paid  to  beautifying  the  school 
room  or  surroundings.  Even  a  heating  stove  was  a 
rare  thing.  Usually  it  was  a  fire-place  where  a 
pupil  would  roast  one  side,  while  the  other  was 
freezing.  An  opening  made  by  cutting  a  log  out 
of  one  side  served  as  a  window  and  when  it  was 
too  cold,  the  window  was  either  closed  up  entirely 
or  at  best  it  was  covered  with  greased  paper.  Glass 
for  windows  was  so  rare  that  mention  was  made  of 
one  as  the  first  and  only  one  in  the  State  having 
"real  glass-  windows." 

One  of  these  schools  which  I  think  is  a  typical 
one,  was  held  for  many  years  in  an  old  church 


24  PIONEER  DAYS 

house.  It  was  a  frame  building  much  larger  than 
the  average,  possibly  about  thirty  by  forty  feet.  It 
stood  on  pillars.  'There  was  no  underpinning  and 
the  hogs  which  were  allowed  to  run  at  large  often 
bedded  under  it.  The  noise  they  made  furnished 
great  amusement  to  the  boys  and  girls.  The  floor 
was  so  open  that  the  wind  could  whistle  thru  it.  If 
a  pencil  were  dropped  it  was  sure  to  roll  thru  a 
crack  and  if  a  finger  of  boy  or  girl  went  up.,  it 
meant  that  the  individual  wanted  to  go  out,  cr?  wl 
under  the  floor  and  get  the  lost  pencil. 

The  seats  were  just  long  benches,  sometimes  ar- 
ranged to  face  the  fire-place  or  sometimes  arranged 
in  a  square  around  the  stove.  The  benches  wtre 
often  merely  logs  split  open  and  pegs  driven  in  the 
round  side  for  legs.  Four  was  the  maximum  num- 
ber of  desks  they  had,  one  for  the  large  boys,  cne 
for  the  small  boys  and  the  same  for  the  girls.  They 
were,  of  course,  home  made.  A  blackboard  possi- 
bly a  yard  square,  made  of  plank  was  all  they  had 
and,  as  they  thought,  all  they  needed.  One  box  of 
crayon  would  last  several  years.  Instead  of  crayon 
they  sometimes  used  a  kind  of  clay  they  called  kale. 
If  they  had  a  map  of  the  United  States  and  another 
of  the  hemispheres  they  thought  themselves  well 
supplied  along  that  line. 

Often  the  Bible  was  the  only  reader  in  school. 
They  used  the  "Old  Blue-backed  Speller,"  written 
by  Noah  (Noah  Webster).  An  advanced  arith- 
metic was  considered  the  most  important  of  all. 


PIONEER  DAYS  25 

It  was  a  source  of  great  pride  to  a  boy  to  go  thru 
the  arithmetic,  for  his  education  was  then  com- 
pleted. The  teacher  could  not  "learn"  him  any- 
thing more  and  he  could  quit  school.  As  we  say 
now,  he  graduated.  There  was  no  library  in  school 
and  there  were  but  few  books  in  the  community. 
In  fact  well-graded  text-books  did  not  exist. 

The  teacher  taught  them  how  to  make  pens  of 
quills  and  ink  of  balls  they  got  from  small  oak 
trees  in  the  woods.  He  set  the  copy  for  them  to 
write.  Here  is  one  of  them,  "Luck  at  the  coppy 
careful."  You  see,  he  had  not  mastered  the  spell- 
ing book  and  that  he  did  not  know  by  any  means 
all  about  grammar.  Tho  "all  declared  how  much 
he  knew,"  it  is  evident  that  his  scholarship  would 
not  pass  muster  now.  They  used  slates  and  home- 
made soapstone  (talc)  pencils.  The  teacher  "board- 
ed round,"  i.e.,  the  people  took  it  turn  about  in 
boarding  him.  They  paid  so  much  per  pupil  or 
"scholar"  as  they  called  it.  A  little  later,  the 
"deestrict"  (district)  school  was  organized  by  law 
and  the  teacher  was  paid  partly  out  of  public  funds 
and  finally  all  was  paid  that  way. 

The  children  liked  to  chew  the  corners  of  their 
books  and  to  throw  spit  balls.  Occasionally  they 
became  unruly  and  it  resulted  in  a  "free-for-all" 
bout,  or  sometimes  it  was  "a  fair  field  and  no  fav- 
ors" between  the  teacher  and  the  bully  of  the 
school.  If  the  teacher  whipped  all  was  well  and 
he  was  respected  from  then  on,  but  if  the  boy  came 


26  PIONEER  DAYS 

out  victorious  he  was  a  hero  and  the  teacher  left  in 
disgrace.  The  boys  often  prided  themselves  on 
being  able  to  take  lots  of  punishment  and  saying 
that  it  never  hurt.  One  of  their  favorite  sports 
was  "lap-jacket."  I  In  this  the  boys  would  get  the 
best  switches  they  could,  two  would  join  left  hands 
and  whip  each  other  with  these  switches.  The  one 
who  flinched  first  was,  of  course,  the  loser  and  was 
laughed  at  by  all  the  crowd.  The  victor  must  then 
go  thru  the  same  ordeal  with  some  one  else  who 

was  sure  to  challenge  his  championship.  | 

1 

In  one  instance  a  "gum-wax"  (sweet  gum)  tree 
stood  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  building 
and  at  noon  many  of  the  boys  and  girls,  all  of  whom 
took  their  dinners,  would  rush  to  their  baskets, 
grab  their  hands  full  of  food  and  make  a  "bee 
line"  for  this  tree,  and  they  stood  around  it  like 
"coon  dogs"  around  a  "coon  tree".  Each  would 
pick  away  at  the  wax,  putting  each  little  particle 
into  his  mouth  until  he  had  a  good  "chaw"  (chew). 
Then  he  would  give  up  his  place  and  go  away  to 
trade  his  wax  out  of  his  mouth  to  some  one  who 
was  not  fortunate  enough  to  get  to  the  tree.  They 
were  not  altogether  selfish.  Sometimes  the  big  boys 
would  gather  a  good  "chaw"  and  give  it  to  the 
big  girls,  receiving  in  return  a  pleasant  smile.  At 
other  times  they  would  lend  their  wax.  It  "was 
common  to  hear  some  little  one  begging: 

"Let  me  chaw  yer  wax  till  recess." 

"Boo!  boo!"  said  a  little  fellow. 


PIONEER  DAYS  27 

"What  is  the  matter  now?"  said  the  teacher. 
"I  swallered  my  wax,"  said  the  little  fellow. 
"It  won't  hurt  you,"  said  the  teacher. 
"But  I  borrowed  it  from  Bill  and  he'll  lick  me 
at  recess,"  said  the  little  fellow. 

In  the  school  room,  then,  good  discipline  did  not 
always  consist  in  keeping  quiet,  but  sometimes  it 
was  in  keeping  noisy.  To  be  sure  they  studied,  the 
teacher  required  them  to  study  aloud  and  if  it  be- 
came too  quiet  the  teacher  would  say,  "Spell  out, 
spell  out!"  On  Friday  afternoons  they  often  had 
spelling  matches,  where  they  chose  sides  and  spelled 
down  or  it  might  be  a  "program,"  as  they  called 
it,  which  consisted  of  "saying  pieces"  gotten  "by 
heart"  from  some  old  book.  Sometimes  on  Friday 
nights  they  had  a  spelling  match  between  differ- 
ent schools  or  possibly  they  had  a  debate  in  which 
the  older  people  took  great  interest.  All  these 
things  were  important  factors  in  the  education  of 
the  people  at  that  time. 

In  the  earlier  days,  the  teacher  was  always  a 
man  and  he  had  to  be  a  man,  physically,  but  condi- 
tions changed  and  many  ladies  were  employed. 
Most  of  them  had  high  ideals  and  their  "boarding 
round"  served  a  good  purpose  in  educating  the 
parents  also  and  in  securing  interest  in  the  school 
and  community  interests  in  general.  The  memory 
of  the  pioneer  teacher  was  a  sacred  memory  to  the 
children  of  the  pioneers.  They  served  well  their 
generation  and  did  their  part  of  the  work  toward 
the  evolution  of  man  as  man  shall  be  when  time 
shall  be  no  more. 


28  PIONEER  DAYS 

THE  PIONEER  MOTHER. 

To  all  those  who  have  builded  well,  we  give  our 
meed  of  praise,  but  especially  do  we  wish  to  honor 
the  pioneer  mother  who  left  the  comforts  of  the  old 
home  "back  East"  and  took  up  the  painful  and 
dangerous  journey  to  the  woodlands  and  the  prai- 
ries of  the  "Illinois  Country,"  and  made  possible, 
this  great  commonwealth. 

' '  Westward  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  way, ' ' 
and  with  this  westward  trend  of  civilization,  came 
the  pioneer  mother  who  turned  her  tear-dimmed 
eyes  from  all  that  civilization  then  afforded,  from 
all  that  was  dear  to  her — father,  mother,  sisters, 
playmates — and  all  the  haunts  of  her  early  child- 
hood. All  these  she  left,  knowing  the  indomitable 
spirit  of  herself  and  her  husband  and,  trusting  in 
God,  bidding  farewell  to  all  these  things  of  sacred 
and  hallowed  memories,  she  looks  hopefully  to  the 
West. 

They  were  the  best  of  the  best,  many  of  them  de- 
scendants of  Puritan  or  Cavalier.  They  sought  not 
freedom  to  worship  God,  for  that  their  grandfath- 
ers and  grandmothers  had  secured.  They  sought 
not  political  liberty,  for  that  their  mothers  and 
fathers  had  secured.  They  sought  not  "Bright 
jewels  of  the  mine,"  but  they  sought  opportunities 
to  build  homes,  where  what  they  earned  would  be 
their  own. 


PIONEER  DAYS  29 

They  came  from  all  the  conveniences  of  the  age, 
not  to  fields  waving  with  golden  grain  nor  to  cities 
of  churches,  schools  and  factories,  but  they  came 
to  a  wilderness  filled  with  wild  animals  and  wilder 
men,  "away  out  west,"  where  every  vision  was 
new  and  where  the  heart  ached  for  a  familiar  voice 
or  a  familiar  scene. 

The  pioneer  mother  has  come  and  gone,  but  she 
did  not  live  in  vain.  She  did  her  part  of  the  work 
toward  the  evolution  of  man  as  man  shall  be  wrhen 
time  shall  be  no  more.  Verily,  "Their  works  do 
live  after  them".  Because  the  pioneers  did  their 
duty  in  the  days  that  were  dark  and  terrible  and 
splendid,  there  has  been  a  great  transformation. 
Forests  have  been  cleared  away,  the  sod  of  the 
prairies  has  been  broken  up.  The  wild  animals 
have  disappeared.  The  Indian  is  no  longer  here  to 
use  his  tomahawk  and  scalping  knife,  but  he  too, 
has  taken  up  his  slow  and  painful  journey  toward 
the  setting  sun.  In  the  place  of  all  these  are  pleas- 
ant farm  homes  where  in  season  can  be  seen  the 
broad  expanse  of  fields  waving  with  golden  grain. 
Churches  dot  the  land,  lifting  their  spires  toward 
Heaven,  showing  that  the  people  have  faith  in  the 
God  their  fathers  and  mothers  so  nobly  served.  No 
less  conspicuous  are  the  common  schools  dedicated 
to  the  education  of  the  masses.  Great  cities  have 
been  built,  connected  with  each  other  by  roads  of 
steel,  over  which  travel  mighty  engines  of  com- 
merce. 


30  PIONEER  DAYS 

"The  mothers  of  our  Forest  Land! 
Stout-hearted  dames  were  they; 

With  nerves   to   wield   the  battle-brand. 
And  join  the  border  fray." 

Today  we  vie  with  each  other  in  doing  homage 
to  the  pioneer.  While  this  is  a  general  terra,  let  us 
not  forget  that  to  the  pioneer  mother  is  due  a  full 
share  of  the  praise  for  giving  us  the  blessings  that 
we  today  enjoy.  From  earliest  traditions  we  have 
honored  the  hero,  but  seldom  has  the  heroine  been 
mentioned.  Let  her  be  immortalized  in  bronze  and 
marble,  in  song  and  story,  and  in  all  that  is  endur- 
ing. 

0  blessed  Soul  of  the  Wilderness!  To  thee  we 
bring  our  tribute  of  praise — yes,  to  thee,  we,  thy 
descendants,  grateful  for  all  that  thou  hast  said 
and  done,  grateful  for  all  thy  sufferings  and  sac- 
rifices, we  say  with  a  heart  full  of  reverence,  "Bless 
thee,  0  my  soul!" 


PIONEER  DAYS  31 

"GOING  TO  MILL." 

In  the  "good  old  days"  they  had  to  resort  to 
various  expedients  in  preparing  the  food  for  the 
table.  Perhaps  110  phase  of  it  is  more  interesting 
than  the  story  of  how  they  ground  their  corn  and 
wheat. 

In  many  families  they  had  a  grater.  They  per- 
haps called  it  a  "gritter. "  It  was  made  of  a  piece 
of  tin,  most  any  size,  that  it  was  possible  to  get. 
They  punched  it  full  of  holes,  bent  it  with  the 
rough  side  convex  and  nailed  it  to  a  piece  of  board, 
thus  forming  a  sort  of  semi-cylinder.  The  corn  on 
the  cob  was  rubbed  on  this,  like  rubbing  clothes  on 
a  washboard,  and  it  was  ground  into  meal  which 
fell  on  the  board  and  ran  down  into  a  wooden 
trough  made  for  the  purpose.  This  was  a  laborious 
process,  but  it  was  the  best  that  many  of  them  had. 

The  next  step  was  what  some  have  called  the 
"hominy  block."  It  was  arranged  on  the  top  of 
a  stump  or  a  block  cut  from  a  tree  and  set  on  end 
and  hewn  out  or  burned  out  so  as  to  make  it  some- 
thing like  a  large  mortar.  For  a  pestle  they  some- 
times used  a  large,  smooth  stone  weighing  some  fif- 
teen or  twenty  pounds.  This  was  very  much  like 
the  plan  the  Indians  had  of  putting  the  corn  in  a 
hole  in  a  rock  and  rubbing  it  with  another.  They 
sometimes  made  a  sort  of  maul,  perhaps  three  feet 
long  and  weighing  ten  or  fifteen  pounds.  They 


32  PIONEER  DAYS 

even  improved  this  and  bent  a  sapling  over,  at- 
tached a  piece  of  timber,  six  or  more  inches  in 
diameter  and  six  or  eight  feet  long,  in  such  a  man- 
ner as  to  allow  the  timber  to  be  brought  down  by 
pulling  it.  By  this  process,  the  labor  was  lessened. 
The  inventive  mind,  prodded  on  by  necessity,  de- 
vised another  plan.  If  a  sapling  were  not  handy, 
they  sometimes  laid  a  pole  twenty-five  or  thirty 
feet  long  across  a  fork  and  with  the  heavy  end 
under  the  corner  of  the  house  in  such  a  manner  as 
to  allow  the  spring  of  the  pole  to  lift  the  weight. 

Next  comes  the  hand-mill,  very  much  like  those 
used  in  the  Holy  Land  today,  and  to  which  the 
Savior  referred  when  he  said,  "Two  women  shall 
be  grinding  at  a  mill,  the  one  shall  be  taken 
and  the  other  left."  It  was  made  of  two  stones,  one 
of  which  was  stationary  and  called  the  bed  stone. 
A  movable  one  above  it  .*was«vcalleqk  the  runner.  A 

\     * 

shaft  was  put  thru  the  runner,  one  end  terminating 
in  the  bed  stone  and  the  other  in  a  hole  in  a  piece 
of  timber  above.  Thru  this  shaft,  a  pole  perhaps 
ten  feet  long  was  put  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make 
two  handles  against  which  two  people  could  push. 
The  corn  was  fed  thru  a  hole  in  the  runner  and 
the  meal  fell  out  from  under  it  at  the  edges.  This 
was  free  for  the  neighborhood  and  every  family 
did  their  own  grinding. 

Perhaps  the  next  step  was  the  horse  mill,  made 
very  much  the  same  way  only  larger,  allowing  the 
horse  or  oxen  to  go  in  a  circle  twenty  feet  or  more 


PIONEER  DAYS  33 

iii  diameter.  This  was  still  improved  by  putting 
the  horse,  or  team  of  horses,  or  yoke  of  oxen,  to  a 
separate  "sweep"  fastened  to  an  upright  beam 
which  was  the  axle  of  a  wheel  fifteen  or  twenty 
feet  in  diameter.  This  large  wheel  carried  a  deer- 
skin or  cow-hide  belt  working  on  a  much  smaller 
wheel  on  the  axle  of  the  runner.  About  that  time 
they  began  to  charge  toll  and  the  law  said  it  should 
be  one-tenth.  They  had  not  then  worked  out  a 
system  of  weighing  the  grain  and  giving  them 
their  milling,  but  each  had  to  wait  until  his  own 
was  ground.  People  went  long  distances  and  often 
had  to  wait  a  long  time.  This  gave  rise  to  the  ex- 
pression, "like  going  to  mill,"  when  you  are  ex- 
pected to  await  your  turn.  It  is  said  that  when 
General  Logan  was  a  boy,  he  drove  thirty  miles  to 
mill.  He,  of  course,  had  to  stay  all  night,  but  that 
night  it  rained.  The  belt  got  wet  and  stretched  so 
that  it  fell.  Some  hungry  dogs  chewed  part  of  it 
up  so  badly  that  they  had  to  kill  an  ox,  tan  the  hide 
and  make  part  of  a  new  belt.  In  this  way,  he  was 
detained  several  days.  My  father,  when  just  a  lad, 
drove  a  yoke  of  oxen  fully  that  far  with  a  load  of 
corn  and  wheat.  Part  of  the  wheat  he  sold  at  fifty 
cents  a  bushel. 

The  next  step  in  this  evolution  was  the  water- 
mill,  which  was  very  much  the  same,  but  was  run 
by  water-power.  If  for  no  other  reason,  this  kind 
of  mill  will  be  remembered  thruout  the  ages  on  ac- 
count of  the  popular  poem,  "Little  Jerry,  the 
Miller". 


34  PIONEER  DAYS 

Near  the  close  of  pioneer  days,  the  steam  mill 
came  into  existence.  Not  until  then  was  there  a 
definite  system  worked  out  whereby  people  could 
exchange  corn  or  wheat  for  meal  or  flour  and  get 
away  without  waiting  for  their  own  to  be  ground. 
Mills  became  more  plentiful  and  people  took  small- 
er amounts  to  mill,  often  not  more  than  three  bush- 
els of  corn  and  three  of  wheat,  and  sometimes  less 
than  that.  They  spoke  of  this  as  a  "turn  of  mill- 
ing". Very  little  wheat  was  used  for  it  was  so 
hard  to  harvest  and  to  thresh.  Fifty  bushels  was 
considered  a  large  crop  of  wheat.  If  it  was  bolted 
at  all,  it  was  thru  a  deer-skin  full  of  small  holes, 
punched  with  a  red-hot  wire.  In  few  things  have 
people  changed  more  than  in  preparing  "bread- 
stuff". 


PIONEER  DAYS  35 


"A  RANGER'S  ADVENTURE." 

(From  Historical  Collections  of  the  Great  West, 
Published  1853.) 

Thomas  Higgins  was  enlisted  in  a  company  of 
rangers  and  was  stationed,  in  the  summer  of  1814, 
in  a  block-house  eight  miles  south  of  Greenville,  in 
what  is  now  Bond  County,  Illinois.  On  the  evening 
of  the  30th  of  August,  a  small  party  of  Indians 
having  been  seen  prowling  about  the  station,  Lieu- 
tenant Journay  with  all  his  men,  twelve  only  in 
number,  sallied  forth  the  next  morning  just  before 
daylight  in  pursuit  of  them.  They  had  not  pro- 
ceeded far  on  the  border  of  the  prairie  before  they 
were  in  an  ambuscade  of  seventy  or  eighty  sav- 
ages. At  the  first  fire  the  lieutenant  and  three  of  his 
men  were  killed.  Six  fled  to  the  fort  under  covet 
of  the  smoke,  for  the  morning  was  sultry  and  the 
air  being  damp,  the  smoke  from  the  guns  hung  like 
a  cloud  over  the  scene,  but  Higgins  remained  be- 
hind to  have  "one  more  pull  at  the  enemy,"  and 
avenge  the  death  of  his  companions. 

He  sprang  behind  a  small  elm,  scarcely  sufficient 
to  protect  his  body,  when,  the  smoke  partly  rising, 
he  discovered  a  number  of  Indians.  He  fired  and 
shot  down  the  foremost  one. 

Still  concealed  by  the  smoke,  Higgins  reloaded, 
mounted  his  horse  and  turned  to  flee  when  a  voice 


36  PIONEER  DAYS 

hailed  him,  "Torn,  you  won't  leave  me,  will  you?" 
He  turned  around  and  seeing  a  fellow  soldier  by  the 
name  of  Burgess,  lying  on  the  ground  and  gasping 
for  breath,  replied,  "No,  I'll  not  leave  you,  come 
along."  "I  can't,"  said  Burgess,  "my  leg  is  all 
smashed  to  pieces."  Higgins  dismounted,  and  tak- 
ing up  his  friend,  was  about  to  lift  him  onto  his 
horse,  when  the  animal,  taking  fright,  darted  off 
in  an  instant  and  left  them  both  behind.  "This  is 
too  bad,"  said  Higgins,  "but  don't  fear;  hop  off 
on  your  three  legs  and  I'll  stay  between  you  and 
the  Indians  and  keep  them  off.  Get  into  the  tallest 
grass  and  crawl  as  near  the  ground  as  possible." 
Burgess  did  so  and  escaped. 

The  smoke  which  had  concealed  Higgins  now 
cleared  away  and  he  resolved  if  possible  to  retreat. 
To  follow  the  track  of  Burgess  was  most  expedient. 
It  would,  however,  endanger  his  friend.  He  de- 
termined, therefore,  to  venture  boldly  forward  and 
if  discovered,  to  secure  his  own  safety  by  the  rap- 
idity of  his  flight.  On  leaving  a  small  thicket  in 
which  he  had  sought  refuge,  he  discovered  a  tall, 
portly  savage  near  by  and  two  others  between  him 
and  the  fort.  He  paused  for  a  moment  and  thought 
if  he  could  separate  them  and  fight  them  singly  his 
case  would  not  be  so  desperate.  He  started  for  a 
little  rivulet  near,  but  found  one  of  his  limbs  fail- 
ing him,  it  having  been  struck  by  a  ball  in  the  first 
encounter,  of  which  till  now  he  was  scarcely  con- 
scious. The  largest  Indian  pressed  close  upon  him 


PIONEER  DAYS  37 

and  Iliggins  turned  round  two  or  three  times  to 
fire.  The  Indian  halted  and  danced  about  to  pre- 
vent his  taking  aim.  He  saw  it  was  unsafe  to  fire 
at  random  and,  perceiving  two  others  approaching, 
knew  he  must  be  overpowered  in  a  moment  unless 
he  could  dispose  of  the  forward  Indian  first.  He 
resolved  to  halt  and  receive  his  fire.  The  Indian 
raised  his  rifle  and  Higgins,  watching  his  eye, 
turned  suddenly  and  received  the  ball  in  his  thigh. 
He  fell  but  rose  immediately  and  ran.  The  fore- 
most Indian,  now  certain  of  his  prey,  loaded  again 
and  with  the  other  two  pressed  on.  The  whole 
three  fired.  He  now  fell  and  rose  a  third  time  and 
the  Indians,  throwing  away  their  guns,  advanced 
upon  him  with  spears  and  knives.  As  he  presented 
his  gun  at  one  or  the  other,  each  fell  back.  At 
last  the  largest  Indian,  supposing  his  gun  to  be 
empty,  from  his  fire  having  been  thus  reserved,  ad- 
vanced boldly  to  the  charge.  Iliggins  fired  and 
the  savage  fell. 

He  now  had  four  bullets  in  his  body,  an  empty 
gun  in  his  hands,  two  Indians  unharmed  before 
him  and  a  whole  tribe  but  a  few  yards  distant. 
Any  other  man  would  have  despaired.  Not  so  with 
him.  He  had  slain  the  most  dangerous  of  the  three 
and,  having  little  fear  of  the  others,  he  began  to 
load  his  rifle.  They  raised  a  savage  whoop  and 
rushed  to  the  encounter.  A  bloody  conflict  en- 
sued. The  Indians  stabbed  him  in  several  places. 
At  last  one  of  them  threw  a  tomahawk,  laid  bare 


38  PIONEER  DAYS 

his  skull  and  stretched  him  \ipon  the  prairie.  The 
Indians  again  rushed  on,  but  Higgins,  recovering 
his  self-possession,  kept  them  off  with  his  feet  and 
hands.  Higgins  grasped  one  of  their  spears  and 
the  Indian  in  attempting  to  pull  it  from  him,  raised 
him  up.  With  his  rifle  he  dashed  out  the  brains  of 
the  nearest  savage.  In  doing  so  he  broke  it,  the 
barrel  only  remaining  in  his  hands.  The  other  In- 
dian who  had  fought  with  caution  came  now  man- 
fully into  the  battle.  To  have  fled  from  a  man  thus 
wounded  and  disarmed  or  to  have  suffered  his  vic- 
tim to  escape  would  have  tarnished  his  name  for- 
ever. Uttering,  therefore,  a  terrific  yell,  he  rushed 
on  and  attempted  to  stab  the  exhausted  ranger,  but 
the  latter  warded  off  his  blow  with  one  hand  and 
brandished  his  rifle-barrel  with  the  other.  The  In- 
dian was  yet  unharmed  and  under  existing  circum- 
stances the  most  powerful  man.  Higgins'  courage, 
however,  was  unexhausted  and  inexhaustible.  The 
savage  at  last  began  to  retreat  from  the  glare  of 
his  untamed  eye  to  the  spot  where  he  dropped  his 
rifle.  Higgins  knew  that  if  he  recovered  that,  ftis 
own  case  was  desperate.  Throwing  his  rifle  barrel 
aside  and  drawing  his  hunting  knife,  he  rushed 
upon  his  foe.  A  desperate  strife  ensued.  Higgins, 
fatigued  and  exhausted  by  the  loss  of  blood,  was 
no  longer  a  match  for  the  savage.  The  latter  suc- 
ceeded in  throwing  his  adversary  from  him  and 
went  immediately  in  quest  of  his  rifle.  Higgins  at 
the  same  time  sought  for  the  gun  of  the  other  In- 


PIONEER  DAYS  39 

dian.  Both,  bleeding  and  out  of  breath,  were  in 
search  of  arms  to  renew  the  combat. 

The  smoke  had  now  cleared  away  and  a  large 
number  of  Indians  were  in  view.  It  would  seem 
that  nothing  could  save  the  gallant  ranger.  There 
was,  however,  an  eye  to  pity  and  an  arm  to  save, 
and  that  arm  was  a  woman's.  The  little  garrison 
had  witnessed  the  whole  combat.  It  consisted  of 
six  men  and  one  woman,  but  that  woman,  a  Mrs. 
Pursley,  was  a  host.  When  she  saw  Higgins  con- 
tending single-handed  with  a  whole  tribe  of  sav- 
ages, she  urged  the  rangers  to  attempt  the  rescue. 
The  rangers  objected  as  the  Indians  were  ten  to 
one.  Mrs.  Pursley  snatched  a  rifle  from  her  hus- 
band's hands  and  declaring,  "So  fine  a  fellow  as 
Tom  Higgins  should  not  be  lost  for  want  of  help," 
mounted  a  horse  and  sallied  forth  to  his  rescue. 
The  men,  unwilling  to  be  outdone  by  a  woman, 
followed  at  full  gallop,  reached  the  spot  where  Hig- 
gins fell  before  the  Indians  came  up,  and  while 
the  savage  with  whom  he  had  been  engaged  was 
looking  for  his  rifle,  they  threw  the  wounded  ran- 
ger across  a  horse  before  one  of  the  party  and 
reached  the  fort  in  safety. 

Iliggins  was  insensible  for  several  days  and  his 
life  was  preserved  only  by  continual  care.  His 
friends  extracted  two  balls  from  his  thigh  but  two 
remained  and  one  of  them  gave  him  a  great  deal 
of  pain.  Hearing  that  a  physician  had  settled  within 
a  day's  ride  of  him,  he  went  to  see  him,  but  the 


40  PIONEER  DAYS 

physician  asked  him  fifty  dollars  and  this  Higgins 
flatly  refused  to  pay.  On  reaching  him  he  re- 
quested his  wife  to  hand  him  his  razor.  With  her 
assistance  he  laid  open  his  thigh  until  the  razor 
touched  the  bullet,  then  inserting  his  two  thumbs 
into  the  gash  he  "flirted  it  out,"  as  he  used  to  say, 
"without  costing  him  a  cent."  The  other  ball  yet 
remained,  tho  it  gave  him  but  little  pain  and  he 
carried  it  Avith  him  to  his  grave.  Higgins  died  in 
Fayette  County  a  few  years  since.  He  was  the 
most  perfect  specimen  of  a  frontier  man  in  his  day 
and  was  once  assistant  door-keeper  in  the  House 
of  Representatives  in  Illinois.  The  facts  above 
stated  are  familiar  to  many  to  whom  Higgins  was 
personally  known  and  there  is  no  doubt  of  their 
correctness. 

To  the  foregoing  I  might  add  that  Higgins  was 
once  engaged  to  fight  a  duel.  It  was  to  be  fought 
with  rocks.  A  pile  of  rocks  of  convenient  size  to 
be  thrown  was  arranged  for  each  one  of  them  at  a 
distance  of  ten  steps  from  each  other.  Each  had 
his  seconds  and  when  the  word  was  given,  the 
rocks  went  from  Higgins  so  much  like  the  shot 
from  a  rapid-fire  gun  that  the  other  fellow  fled. 
Thus  ended  the  duel  in  favor  of  Higgins. 


PIONEER  DAYS  41 


"LASSES." 

My  dear  reader,  I  am  not  giddy.  I  am  not  talk- 
ing about  girls  but  I  am  talking  about  something 
sweeter.  Those  who  have  never  had  the  pleasure 
of  playing  around  a  sugar  camp  could  never  guess 
what  it  is,  so  I  will  tell.  It  is  sugar  molasses.  They 
used  to  call  it  "lasses".  In  pioneer  days  there 
were  many  sugar  camps  out  in  the  woods,  where 
there  were  lots  of  maples  or,  as  they  were  called, 
"sugar  trees".  When  the  sap  began  to  run,  they 
took  kettles,  kegs,  buckets,  pans,  gourds  and  other 
things  too  numerous  to  mention  and  went  to  the 
woods. 

The  trees  were  tapped  by  boring  holes  into  them 
and  putting  an  "elder"  (alder)  stalk  into  the  hole 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  a  spout,  which  ran  the 
s;ip  into  a  trough  made  by  cutting  a  log  two  or 
three  feet  long,  splitting  it  in  halves  and  digging 
it  out  something  like  the  Indians  used  to  do  for 
canoes. 

The  "sap"  or  "drip"  was  hauled  in  every  morn- 
ing on  a  small  sled  with  a  barrel  on  it,  and  it  was 
put  to  boiling  as  soon  as  possible.  Sometimes  the 
"bailiwick"  of  one  man  overlapped  another's,  and 
it  often  caused  trouble.  Deer  liked  this  sap  also, 
and  sometimes  a  man  went  to  his  trough  and  found 
it  like  Old  Mother  Hubbard's  cupboard.  That'  oc- 
casionally caused  trouble,  also,  as  competitors  were 


42  PIONEER  DAYS 

liable  to  accuse  each  other  of  taking  their  sap.  In 
one  instance,  of  which  I  recall  hearing  my  father 
speak,  two  men  had  trouble  at  a  sugar  camp  and 
one  killed  the  other.  .  The  dying  man  requested 
that  he  be  buried  where  he  killed  his  last  "buck". 
His  request  was  granted  and  he  was  buried  on  the 
top  of  the  hill  where  the  wind,  moaning  in  the 
trees,  sang  his  requiem  for  fifty  years. 

Some  of  them  had  to  stay  at  camp  at  night  and 
occasionally  a  deer  or  other  animal  would  come  up, 
attracted  either  by  the  light  or  the  scent  of  the 
camp.  Their  eyes  could  be  seen  shining  far  back 
in  the  dark,  in  fact,  so  far  back  that  the  men  could 
see  only  the  eyes  of  the  animals,  but  that  was 
enough,  for  the  pioneer  was  a  good  shot  and  he 
usually  got  them.  This  was  called  "shining  a 
deer." 

Children  were  all  around  the  camp  and  as  happy 
as  mortals  could  be.  Smoke,  ashes,  dirt  and  "lass- 
es" so  completely  covered  them  that  you  could 
scarcely  have  told  whether  they  were  white  or 
black.  By  means  of  shifting  sap  from  one  kettle 
to  another,  they  had  some  cooked  to  sugar,  some  to 
"lasses"  and  some  not  quite  so  far  along.  It  was 
good  "fillin'  "  and  the  children  couldn't  keep  out 
of  it.  If  they  had  a  stic"k  or  a  paddle,  they  used  it 
and  if  not,  they  dipped  their  fingers  in  and  then 
licked  them  off.  My  experience  goes  back  just  far 
enough  that  I  had  a  chance  to  see  the  last  of  the 
sugar  camps  in  Illinois.  Gee!  The  kiddies  of  the 
twentieth  century  do  not  know  what  they  have 
missed  ! 


PIONEER  DAYS  43 


"BUCK=SKIN  BREECHES." 

On  the  Big  Muddy  River  in  Jackson  County, 
there  lived  in  the  "good  old  days"  a  well-to-do 
family  who  had  a  beautiful  daughter,  who  was 
the  admiration  of  the  young  men  for  miles  around. 
There  came  to  court  her  one  winter's  evening  one 
of  the  young  men  of  the  neighborhood,  dressed  in 
the  best  that  pioneer  life  afforded.  As  is,  of  course, 
always  the  case  when  a  young  man  goes  to  see  his 
best  girl,  the  hours  passed  swiftly  by  and  it  was 
time  for  him  to  go  home,  but  it  began  to  rain  and 
he  was  persuaded  to  stay  all  night.  When  he  was 
shown  his  apartment,  he  bade  the  lovely  girl  ' '  good 
night,"  hastily  undressed,  carelessly  dropped  his 
buck-skin  breeches  on  the  floor  and  was  soon  in  a 
snug,  warm  bed  and  since  it  was  late,  he  soon  fell 
asleep. 

It  became  a  cold,  blustery  night.  The  rain  and 
sleet  blew  into  his  room  and  completely  covered 
his  breeches,  much  of  it  going  inside.  As  it  turned 
colder  his  breeches  were  frozen  so  stiff  that  he  could 
make  them  stand  alone.  Imagine  his  consterna- 
tion, if  you  can,  when  he  awoke  the  next  morning 
and  found  his  Sunday  breeches  in  that  condition. 
What  was  he  to  do?  What  would  you  do?  He 
tried  to  put  them  on,  but  it  was  out  of  the  question. 
Taking  them  in  his  hands,  he  went  to  the  room 
of  the  mother  and  father  of  the  girl,  where  there 


44  PIONEER  DAYS 

was  the  only  fire-place  in  the  house.  He  sat  them 
against  the  jamb  to  thaw  out  and  to  dry  while  he 
scampered  back  to  bed.  Troiible  enough  it  seemed 
to  him,  but  it  was  only  the  beginning,  for  as  they 
thawed  out  next  the  fire,  they  naturally  fell  that 
way  and  fell  in.  Finally,  the  father  began  to  smell 
burning  leather  and  jumped  out  of  bed,  but  too 
late  to  save  the  young  man's  breeches.  They  were 
damaged  beyond  use.  The  young  man  was  in- 
formed of  the  accident  but  what  could  he  do  ex- 
cept to  stay  in  bed  until  another  pair  could  be 
fixed  up  for  him  and  that  is  just  what  he  did.  The 
father  came  to  the  rescue  and  lent  him  a  pair,  and 
without  much  ceremony  the  boy  turned  his  steps 
homeward.  Just  what  the  girl  thought  of  this  un- 
usual performance,  neither  history  nor  tradition 
tells  us,  but  we  are  told  that  it  was  a  long  time  be- 
fore he  had  the  courage  to  even  look  at  the  girl 
again  and  that  he  finally  married  another  girl. 


PIONEER  DAYS  45 

PIONEER  BOATMEN. 

Many  and  marvelous  are  the  changes  that  have 
been  made  in  all  the  walks  of  human  endeavor  in 
the  last  one  hundred  years,  but  I  believe  there  are 
no  changes  that  are  more  marked  than  have  been 
made  in  transportation.  This  is  particularly  true 
as  applied  to  rivers. 

Father  Jacques  Marquette  and  Louis  Joliet  were 
content  to  ply  the  Father  of  Waters  and  the  Illi- 
nois in  company  with  the  Indians  in  their  little 
canoes,  scarcely  dreaming  of  the  changes  a  few 
generations  were  to  bring  forth.  A  few  years  later 
the  French  were  going  on  exploring  and  trading 
voyages. down  the  Ohio  with  boats  large  enough  to 
carry  considerable  quantities  of  freight.  This  con- 
tinued until  their  plans  were  frustrated  when  the 
English  drove  them  from  their  uncompleted  fort 
where  Pittsburgh  now  stands. 

A  few  years  later  Colonel  George  Rogers  Clark 
and  his  intrepid  band  of  soldiers  floated  down  the 
Ohio  in  a  boat  still  more  pretentious.  They  were, 
in  a  sense,  pathfinders  and  it  was  the  beginning  of 
a  new  day,  for  after  the  Revolutionary  War  was 
over,  navigation  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi 
began  in  earnest.  Many  of  the  men  who  had  been 
in  Clark's  expedition  went  back  to  settle  on  the 
rich  farming  land  in  what  is  now  known  as  the 
American  Bottom  above  Kaskaskia.  Others  cnr/'e 


46  PIONEER  DAYS 

in  large  parties  from  the  old  home  "back  East", 
pushed  across  the  mountains  to  the  Monongaheia 
Valley  or  to  Pittsburgh,  or  some  other  point  on 
the  Ohio,  and  built  large  flat  boats  on  which  they 
loaded  all  their  belongings  and  finally  landed  some- 
where on  the  Illinois  shore  or  possibly  they  labori- 
ously worked  their  way  against  the  current  up  th( 
Wabash  or  the  Mississippi.  These  boats  were  from 
fifty  to  sixty  feet  long  and  from  twelve  to  fifteen 
feet  wide.  One  writer  says,  "They  were  loaded 
with  a  little  of  everything".  The  cargo  included 
provisions  for  the  trip,  some  tools — particularly 
axes,  a  good  supply  of  ammunition  and  a  trusty 
rifle  for  each  man  and  boy,  and  possibly  an  extra 
supply  of  clothing.  To  all  these  were  added  dogs, 
chickens,  ducks,  geese,  pigs,  sheep  and  cattle.  We 
must  not  forget  that  this  was  a  passenger  boat,  too. 
It  must  have  looked  very  much  like  Noah's  Ark, 
for  it  is  said  that  once  a  young  fellow  yelled  at 
the  captain  of  one  of  these  crafts  and  said: 

"Hello,  old  Noah,  have  you  any  room  for  any- 
thing else  in  your  ark?" 

The  captain  looked  around  for  a  moment  and 
said: 

"Yes,  I  think  we  have  room  for  a  donkey  yet; 
come,  jump  on." 

Following  this,  men  made  it  a  business  to  take 
the  products  of  the  new  country  down  to  New  Or- 
leans. They  made  larger  boats,  called  keel-boats. 


PIONEER  DAYS  47 

They  drank  and  gambled  and  had  a  glorious  time 
generally  as  they  went  down,  regardless  of  the 
fact  that  they  were  in  constant  danger  of  being 
attacked  by  Indians  or  pirates,  but  the  return  trip 
was  one  of  toil  and  hardship.  Often  they  could 
make  no  progress  at  all  against  the  current,  and 
they  had  to  go  ahead  and  tie  a  rope  to  a  tree,  then 
pull  themselves  up  "hand  over,"  or  sometimes 
they  wound  the  rope  on  a  windlass.  This  took  a 
long  time  and  a  trip  often  lasted  a  whole  season. 
These  boatmen  were  strong  and  courageous.  They 
had  grown  up  on  the  rivers  and  were  used  to  hard- 
ships. They  despised  a  life  of  ease  and  luxury. 
They  knew  what  danger  was  and  courted  it  in  all 
its  forms.  They  feared  neither  God  nor  Devil, 
and  much  further  were  they  from  fearing  man. 
They  often  had  to  fight  Indians  and  sometimes  com- 
peting crews  fought  to  the  death.  Occasionally 
they  fell  out  among  themselves  and  if  things  seemed 
too  quiet,  they  would  have  a  fight  just  to  see  who 
could  whip. 

A  fair  specimen  of  these  boatmen  was  Mike  Fink. 
Immoral  and  unprincipled,  but  whatever  his  faults, 
he  was  not  a  coward.  It  is  said  that  he  was  a  great 
joker,  but  if  any  one  failed  to  laugh  at  his  jokes, 
he  gave  them  a  whipping.  He  used  to  say,  "I'm  a 
Salt  River  roarer ;  I'm  chuck  full  of  fight  and  I  love 
the  women."  The  following  incident,  however, 
does  not  indicate  that  his  last  statement  is  true. 
Once  while  his  boat  was  tied  up,  another  boatman 


48  PIONEER  DAYS 

made  a  landing  near  his.  Mike  was  seen  to  be  in  a 
bad  humor  as  he  went  into  the  edge  of  the  woods 
and  raked  up  a  large  pile  of  dry  leaves.  They 
asked  him  why  he  was  doing  it,  but  he  went  on  sul- 
lenly without  a  word.  Finally  it  was  as  high  as 
his  head  and  he  went  back  to  the  boat  and  got  his 
rifle,  then  called  to  Peggy,  his  wife,  to  follow.  She 
knew  something  was  wrong  and  said  in  alarm, 
"Mr.  Fink,  what  have  I  done?"  No  reply  came, 
but  she  followed  as  he  led  the  way  to  the  pile  of 
leaves.  He  ordered  her  to  lie  down  and  she  obeyed. 
Then  he  set  fire  to  them  and  told  her  if  she  moved 
he  would  shoot  her.  She  stood  it  as  long  as  she 
could,  but  finally,  with  her  hair  and  dress  on  fire, 
she  ran  and  jumped  into  the  river.  Then  Mike, 
with  his  usual  profanity  thrown  in  for  emphasis, 
said:  "Now  that'll  larn  ye  not  to  be  winkin'  at 
them  fellers  on  t'other  boat." 

Most  of  them  were  good  marksmen  and  he  was 
particularly  so.  Once  he  shot  a  negro  in  the  heel 
just  to  hear  him  yell.  He  had  a  friend  who  was  an 
equally  good  marksman  and-  they  often  used  to 
shoot  a  cup  of  whiskey  off  of  each  other's  heads 
at  a  distance  of  seventy  steps.  They  had  a  quarrel, 
but  made  up,  and  to  celebrate  the  treaty  they 
agreed  to  try  their  old  feat.  They  tossed  up  a 
coin  to  see  who  might  shoot  first.  Mike  won  and 
when  he  fired  his  comrade  fell  dead.  Mike  at  first 
claimed  it  was  an  accident,  but  later,  as  if  to  jus- 
tify his  reputation  as  a  marksman,  he  said  he  hit 


PIONEER  DAYS  49 

where  he  aimed.  The  person  to  whom  he  spoke 
drew  a  pistol  and  put  a  bullet  thru  his  heart.  Thus 
died  Mike  Fink,  the  last  of  the  keel  boatmen. 

In  1811,  the  same  year  as  the  great  earthquake 
at  New  Madrid,  the  first  steamboat  west  of  the 
Alleghenies  was  built  at  Pittsburgh.  It  was  named 
the  New  Orleans.  As  it  made  its  first  trip  down 
the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi,  many  interesting 
things  of  note  occurred.  Many  of  the  people  had 
never  heard  of  a  steamboat,  nor  would  they  have 
believed  the  story  within  the  realm  of  possibility. 
On  a  fine,  still,  moonlight  night  it  rounded  in  at 
Louisville.  The  escaping  steam  and  the  noise  in 
rounding  to  land  produced  a  general  alarm  and  the 
whole  town  was  up  in  a  little  while  and  down  at 
the  river.  A  comet  had  recently  been  visible  and 
the  superstitious  people  thought  it  had  fallen  into 
the  river.  Greater  consternation  was  added  to  the 
scene  because  they  believed  that  a  comet  was  a 
harbinger  of  war  and  many  other  dire  punishments 
from  the  Almighty.  It  is  said  that  many  others, 
who  either  heard  or  saw  the  boat  on  the  river  for 
the  first  time,  fled  for  the  hills  and  would  not  re- 
turn for  several  days  or  until  they  were  persuaded 
to  believe  the  true  story  of  the  new  invention.  It 
plied  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi  from  that  time 
until  1811,  when  it  was  sunk  near  Shreveport,  Loui- 
siana, but  others  had  been  built.  This  boat  sounded 
the  death  knell  of  the  keel-boats.  A  new  era  in 
navigation  had  been  ushered  in  and  the  steamboat 
had  come  to  stay. 


50  PIONEER  DAYS 

CAMP  MEETINGS. 

Contrary  to  the  general  belief,  camp  meetings 
were  originated  by  the  Presbyterians,  and  not  by 
the  Methodists,  but  the  Methodists  soon  joined  in 
and  it  became  a  kind  of  union  meeting.  They  began 
in  western  Tennessee  in  the  closing  days  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  but  were  soon  introduced  into 
southern  Illinois  by  the  Methodists  and  were  con- 
tinued for  a  good  many  years. 

A  traveling  preacher  would  go  into  a  neighbor- 
hood and  would  have  such  power  over  his  congre- 
gation that  the  people  did  not  doubt  that  his  power 
was  supernatural.  The  effect  on  the  audience  has 
been  variously  described.  It  was  somewhat  anal- 
ogous to  mesmerism  of  our  own  times.  Under  the 
peculiar  eloquence  of  the  preacher  or  the  melody  of 
the  songs,  some  one  would  begin  shouting.  It  was 
"catching",  and  in  a  few  minutes  the  same  thing 
was  going  on  all  over  the  house.  Soon  they  would 
fall  on  the  floor,  sometimes  rolling  and  jerking  and 
sometimes  lying  perfectly  motionless,  apparently  in 
a  state  midway  between  life  and  death  for  hours  at 
a  time. 

Of  course,  all  those  things  brought  great  crowds, 
some  came  for  fun,  some  out  of  idle  curiosity,  but 
no  doubt  a  large  percentage  of  them  were  prompted 
by  motives  of  pure  religious  devotion.  Regardless 
of  their  motives  for  gathering,  they  were  "moved 


PIONEER  DAYS  51 

by  the  Spirit",  and  many  "who  came  to  scoff  re- 
mained to  pray".  It  was  soon  found  that  no  house 
would  accommodate  the  crowds  and  they  assem- 
bled in  a  grove  near  some  spring.  People  came  by 
the  thousands  and  camped  until  the  meetings  closed 
and  this  was  sometimes  for  several  weeks.  Between 
the  sessions  the  people  visited  from  camp  to  camp 
and  read  the  Bible,  and  while  the  sessions  were  on, 
the  wildest  enthusiasm  reigned.  There  were  min- 
gled voices  of  preaching,  praying,  crying  and  sing- 
ing. 

When  the  final  session  closed  and  the  people  de- 
parted for  their  homes,  they  could  be  heard  singing 
and  shouting  praises  to  God,  until  their  voices  died 
away  in  the  distance. 


52  PIONEER  DAYS 


WITCHCRAFT. 

In  1799,  two  negroes,  one  at  Kaskaskia  and  the 
other  at  Cahokia,  were  adjudged  guilty  of  witch- 
craft and  were  burned  at  the  stake,  according  to 
law.  This  is  but  a  clue  to  a  belief  that  was  quite 
prevalent  during  the  early  days  in  Illinois. 

The  men  were  usually  good  marksmen  but  if, 
while  on  a  hunt,  they  were  "out  of  luck,"  as  we 
would  probably  say,  they  said  some  one  had  be- 
witched their  gun  and  about  the  only  way  the  spell 
of  the  witch  could  be  broken,  was  to  take  the  gun 
to  a  stream  running  from  a  certain  spring,  unscrew 
the  breech  and  allow  the  water  to  flow  thru  from 
muzzle  to  breech  for  a  certain  number  of  hours. 

If  a  cow  became  sick,  it  was  generally  thought 
that  she  had  either  lost  her  cud  or  that  she  was 
bewitched.  If  they  diagnosed  the  case  as  the  for- 
mer malady,  she  was  made  to  swallow  a  greasy 
dishrag.  If  that  did  not  cure,  she  was  bewitched. 
When  her  milk  "fell  off",  that  is,  when  she  ceased 
to  give  her  usual  amount  of  milk,  which  is  always 
the  case  when  she  is  sick,  the  witches  were  milking 
her.  They  supposed  that  the  witch  did  it  by  hang 
ing  a  towel  over  her  own  door  and  that  by  some 
mysterious  power  she  was  able  to  cause  the  milk  to 
go  from  the  cow  to  the  towel  and  that  the  witch 
then  got  the  milk  by  wringing  the  towel. 


PIONEER  DAYS  53 

They  had  an  idea  that  if  people  became  sick  and 
slippery  elm  or  some  other  simple  remedy  would 
not  cure  them,  they  were  under  the  spell  of  a  witch 
and  they  had  more  faith  in  a  "witch-master"  than 
in  a  medical  doctor.  If  the  person  got  well,  they 
thought  the  witch  had  lost  her  power  and  could 
regain  it  only  by  borrowing  something  from  the 
family  she  wished  to  harm.  It  often  happened  that 
the  very  best  women  of  the  community,  who  had 
given  the  best  of  their  lives  to  the  community, 
were  refused  the  simplest  favors  because  the  peo- 
ple were  afraid  they  were  giving  new  power  to  a 
witch. 


54  PIONEER  DAYS 

KASKASKIA  CURSED. 

That  the  following  story  is  strictly  historical,  I 
can  not  assert.  That  there  is  much  truth  in  it,  can 
not  be  doubted.  Many  people,  who  are  more  or  less 
superstitious,  are  inclined  to  believe  it  all.  With 
the  caution  "not  to  take  it  too  seriously"  I  am  pub- 
lishing it  just  because  it  is  a  good  story. 

Jean  Benard  was  one  of  the  first  merchants  in 
Old  Kaskaskia.  His  business  prospered  and  he 
soon  became  one  of  the  most  influential  men  in  the 
community.  His  home  became  a  social  center.  This 
was  partly  due  to  his  geniality,  but  more  to  the 
fact  that  he  had  a  daughter  who  gained  the  repu- 
tation of  being  the  most  beautiful  girl  in  all  the 
Mississippi  Valley.  She  had  many  a  gay  young 
lover  among  the  French  from  far  and  near,  but  it 
seems  that  Fate  had  decreed  that  she  should  reject 
all  of  them. 

Many  of  the  Kaskaskia  Indians  became  con- 
verted to  Christianity.  Among  them  was  a  young 
man  who  strove  hard  to  get  an  education  and  such 
were  his  efforts  that  he  soon  gained  the  reputation 
of  being  the  best  educated  among  the  young  men 
of  the  community.  He  began  trading  and  prospered 
from  the  beginning.  It  was  not  long  until  he  was 
taken  in  as  a  partner  in  the  largest  trading  estab- 
lishment in  Kaskaskia,  and  soon  was  on  a  level 
socially  with  the  young  Frenchmen  of  the  com- 
munity. 


PIONEER  DAYS  55 

It  is  to  be  supposed  that  a  man  as  popular  as  he 
and  a  girl  as  pretty  as  Marie  would  meet,  and  that 
is  just  what  happened,  or  did  it  "just  happen?" 
When  they  met,  it  was  a  case  of  love  at  first  sight. 
He  admired  her  sweet'  voice  and  her  pretty  face, 
and  she  in  turn  could  not  help  but  admire  his  tall, 
manly  form  and  his  plucky  disposition.  Benard 
believed  in  the  superiority  of  French  blood  and 
could  not  bear  the  idea  of  his  daughter's  courting 
an  Indian,  no  matter  what  his  standing,  so  he  did 
all  he  could  against  him,  socially  and  financially, 
and  finally  succeeded  in  forcing  him  out  of  busi- 
ness and  society,  but  love  always  finds  a  way  and 
in  spite  of  the  vigilant  eye  of  Benard,  they  man- 
aged to  meet  •  occasionally  until  they  chose  to 
change  their  plans. 

No  one  knew  the  Indian's  plans  but  Marie,  and 
she  never  told.  He  left  Kaskaskia  and  for  many 
months  no  one  ever  heard  of  him.  Benard  thought 
that  his  daughter  had  forgotten  her  lover,  for  she 
appeared  gay  and  careless  and  accepted  with  ap- 
parent pleasure  the  attentions  of  young  French- 
men. One  day  a  strange  Indian  appeared.  That 
night  Marie  and  the  strange  Indian  disappeared. 
He  was  her  old  lover.  The  conclusion  was,  of 
course,  reached  without  much  delay  that  the  cou- 
ple had  fled  together  and  this  was  correct.  A  party 
was  at  once  organized  to  follow,  and  as  a  new 
snow  had  fallen,  they  were  easily  trailed.  They 
were  overtaken  near  where  the  thriving  city  of  Co- 


56  PIONEER  DAYS 

lurabia  now  stands.  The  facts  developed  that  he 
had  provided  a  home  for  her  at  the  French  settle- 
ment of  Chouteau,  now  a  part  of  St.  Louis,  Mis- 
souri. 

In  order  to  protect  Marie,  the  Indian  surrendered 
without  much  resistance,  and  they  were  taken  back 
to  Kaskaskia.  Some  of  the  men  in  the  pursuing 
party  were  rivals  of  the  Indian  for  the  hand  oi 
Marie  and  they  and  others  of  the  posse  wanted  to 
kill  the  Indian  on  the  spot,  but  Benard  claimed  th< 
right  to  name  the  punishment  that  should  be  meted 
out  to  the  lover  of  his  daughter. 

When  the  party  reached  Kaskaskia,  the  daugh- 
ter was  placed  in  a  convent.  Then  they  took  the 
Indian  to  the  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  bound  him 
with  his  back  to  a  log  and  set  him  afloat.  As  this 
helpless  Indian  floated  away  he  lifted  his  eyes  to- 
ward Heaven  and  with  a  loud  voice  he  called  down 
the  curse  of  God — on  Benard  and  the  city  of  Kas- 
kaskia. He  asked  God  to  give  a  violent  death  to 
Benard,  to  destroy  Kaskaskia  even  to  the  graves 
of  the  dead,  leaving  only  the  name.  Benard  was 
killed  in  a  duel,  and  how  fully  his  curse  on  Kas- 
kaskia was  fulfilled,  history  tells  us  only  too  well, 
for  as  he  invoked  God  in  his  curse,  the  same  mighty 
river  that  was  drifting  him  down  to  his  doom,  later 
overflowed  and  swept  away  the  entire  town,  leav- 
ing not  even  their  graves.  The  Father  of  Waters 
now  floats  over  the  site  of  this  one  time  proud  me- 
tropolis of  the  west.  On  dark,  stormy  nights,  the 


PIONEER  DAYS  57 

ghost  of  the  Indian  is  said  to  appear.  The  spectre 
with  strong  arms  bound  and  with  face  upturned, 
floats  placidly  on  the  river  where  it  sweeps  over 
the  vanished  city  in  which  Marie  Benard  lived  and 
in  which  she  died  mourning  the  Red  Man  whom 
she  loved. 


58  PIONEER  DAYS 


FREAK  LAWSUITS  OF  PIONEER  DAYS. 

At  Shawneetown,  Illinois,  there  is  an  old  jus- 
tice's docket  that  gives  some  interesting  things 
relative  to  law  suits  in  that  locality.  Part  of  it 
is  scarcely  legible  and  the  language  far  from  the 
rules  of  grammar,  but  part  of  it  is  well  written 
and  the  language  is  a  mark  of  scholarship  in  the 
one  who  wrote  it.  Here  are  some  things  docketed 
in  1822,  just  four  years  after  Illinois  had  been  ad- 
mitted into  the  Union  as  a  State.  In  one  case  the 
judgment  was  for  five  dollars  and  thirty-seven  and 
a  half  cents,  and  it  was  the  order  of  the  court  that 
the  judgment  be  paid  in  salt  at  three  bits  a  bushel. 
(A  bit  was  a  coin  worth  twelve  and  a  half  cents.) 
In  another  case,  a  man  was  sued  for  four  bits  and 
the  verdict  was,  "We  the  jury  find  the  defendant 
guilty."  In  regard  to  the  same  case  the  further 
notation  was  made,  "The  amount  has  been  paid  in 
Kentucky  paper  and  the  court  is  satisfied."  Still 
another  case  gives  judgment  for  one  dollar  and 
fifty  cents  and  costs,  itemizing  the  costs  as  follows : 
25  cents,  371/2  cents,  25  cents,  12^  cents,  371/2 
cents. 

There  are  other  cases  as  interesting  that  are 
nearer  to  our  own  times.  In  1833,  some  religious 
fanatics  in  Cass  County  attempted  to  burn  an  old 
woman  as  a  burnt  offering,  were  indicted  for  riot- 
ing and  fined  three  dollars.  In  1840,  at  old  Browns 


PIONEER  DAYS  59 

ville,  near  where  Murphysboro  now  stands,  two 
men  swore  positively  to  a  steer.  One  admitted 
that  he  had  not  seen  it  for  a  year,  but  asserted  that 
he  knew  it  because  he  was  personally  acquainted 
with  it.  The  justice  could  not  tell  which  to  believe 
so  he  gave  judgment  that  they  kill  the  steer,  di- 
vide it  equally  between  them  and  give  the  hide  and 
tallow  to  the  court  for  the  costs. 

When  the  Illinois  Central  was  being  built,  a  large 
gang  of  Irishmen  were  pushing  wheelbarrows  near 
where  Tamaroa  now  stands.  They  got  on  a  drunk 
and  a  warrant  was  issued  for  one  of  them.  A  con- 
stable went  to  make  the  arrest.  He  could  not  get 
him,  but  he  fined  him  and  took  back  with  him  both 
fine  and  costs.  That  constable  was  Henry  Clay,  a 
man  who  afterwards  became  a  lawyer  of  consid- 
erable ability  and  was  a  member  of  the  Illinois 
Legislature. 

With  rare  exceptions  the  people  were  honest  and 
meant  to  be  law-abiding.  Their  differences  were  as 
a  general  thing  "settled  out  of  court",  either  by 
mutual  agreement,  arbitration  by  a  trusted  neigh- 
bor, or  by  fighting  it  out.  The  records  give  com- 
paratively few  cases  of  larceny  and  where  steal- 
ing did  occur  it  was  pressing  necessities  that 
brought  it  about.  In  Jackson  County  a  man  by  the 
name  of  Wolf  was  brought  before  a  justice  charged 
with  stealing  a  hog.  When  the  charges  were  read 
and  he  was  asked  to  plead  guilty  or  not  guilty,  he 
gave  the  following  speech  to  the  court.  "If  your 


60  PIONEER  DAYS 

honor  please,  I  believe  I  am,  but  if  you  have  ;my 
doubts  as  to  the  facts,  just  call  on  Bill  Page.  He 
was  with  me  and  got  half  the  shoat,  but  we  needed 
it  or  we  would  not  have  taken  it."  After  knitting 
his  brow  and  scratching  his  head  for  a  long  time 
the  court  said,  "It  appears  from  the  testimony  that 
you,  Wolf,  the  defendant  in  this  suit,  have  violated 
the  statutory  law  of  the  State  and  are  guilty  of  a 
misdemeanor.  You  are  fined  five  gallons  of  whis- 
key and  the  costs,  the  court  to  be  paid  in  deer 
skins  killed  in  the  short  blue  season."  (Perhaps 
we  should  digress  here  long  enough  to  explain  that 
the  deer  sheds  twice  a  year.  The  heavy  hair  of  the 
winter  is  shed  in  the  spring.  It  sheds  again  in  the 
fall  and  is  left  with  a  covering  of  short  hair  that  in 
color  is  between  a  blue  and  iron-gray.) 

The  following  case  does  not  belong  under  an  ar- 
ticle of  this  heading,  but  it  is  worthy  of  note,  so 

we  here  include  the  incident.    A  man  named 

was  sentenced  to  be  hanged  at  Albion.  He  had  a 
rifle  that  was  coveted  by  all  the  neighbors  for  miles 
around.  One  of  them  proposed  that  he  would  get 
him  a  pardon  for  the  rifle.  The  condemned  man 
accepted  the  proposition.  The  other  man  took  a 
jug  and  a  paper  and  went  to  work  among  his 
friends.  In  a  short  time  he  had  enough  signatures 
to  a  petition  for  pardon  to  feel  justified  in  present- 
ing it  to  the  Governor.  The  pardon  was  secured 
and  offered  to  the  condemned  man.  He  refused  to 
give  up  the  rifle,  saying  the  pardon  was  not  worth 


PIONEER  DAYS  61 

it.  They  were  sitting  before  a  big  fire  and  the  man 
who  secured  the  petition  threw  the  petition  behind 
the  back-log.  This  brought  the  criminal  to  time. 
The  pardon  was  gotten  out  before  it  burned  up, 
and  the  man  was  released. 


62  PIONEER  DAYS 


MONEY  OF  THE  GOOD  OLD  DAYS. 

To  use  the  language  of  one  of  the  pioneers, 
"Money  was  purty  scace  (pretty  scarce)  in  them 
days."  And  they  had  such  a  variety  of  standards 
that  they  seldom  knew  what  their  money  was 
worth  or  how  it  would  fluctuate  in  value.  Tf  a 
person  proposed  a  trade  the  answer  often  came 
back  in  an  inquiry,  "What  kind  of  money  have 
you  got?"  The  answer  may  have  been,  "Govern- 
ment money,"  but  it  was  more  likely  to  be  "State 
money,"  or  "Kentucky  money,"  or  some  other 
kind  of  money,  or  still  more  likely  it  was  a  general 
statement  of  what  he  had  to  trade.  Various  hides 
and  other  things  had  a  value  placed  on  them  and 
they  passed  as  currency.  Debts  were  made  and 
they  were  paid  with  them.  In  some  localities  notes 
were  given  promising  to  pay  so  many  saddles  of 
venison  at  a  certain  time.  In  other  localities  cattle 
were  made  the  standard  of  value.  They  were  rated 
as  "first-rate,"  "second-rate"  and  "third-rate". 
A  first-rate  cow  and  calf  was  worth  ten  dollars  in 
State  money.  A  second-rate  one  was  worth  eight 
dollars  and  a  third-rate  was  worth  six  dollars. 

Thus  all  property  was  rated  and  if  a  man  wil- 
fully rated  his  property  wrongly  he  was  considered 
what  we  would  call  a  "crook"  and  it  was  hard  to 
get  people  to  trade  with  him.  Neighbors  were 
sometimes  called  in  to  rate  their  goods.  The  judg- 


PIONEER  DAYS  63 

ment  of  these  neighbors  was  law  and  from  their  de- 
cision there  was  no  appeal.  Milk,  butter,  eggs, 
beef,  pork,  venison,  etc.,  were  all  given  away  among 
the  neighbors  for  their  own  use,  but  for  the  mar- 
ket they  had  a  value — pork,  beef  and  venison  at 
about  half  a  cent  per  pound,  eggs  about  three  cents 
per  dozen,  and  butter,  if  at  all,  three  cents  per 
pound.  This  is  the  kind  of  money  they  had  to  pay 
"the  butcher,  the  baker  and  the  candle-stick  mak- 
er", and  the  preacher,  too,  but  they  were  their  own 
butchers,  their  own  bakers  and  candle-stock-makers 
and  some  one  of  their  own  number  was  the 
preacher. 


64  PIONEER  DAYS 

SETTLING  THEIR  DIFFERENCES. 

Illinois  is  a  big  State  and  people  came  from 
many  sections  in  the  ''good  old  days,"  so  we  might 
expect  that  customs  differed  widely.  In  few  local- 
ities was  it  always  possible  to  settle  their  differ- 
ences without  resorting  to  personal  encounters.  Be 
it  said,  however,  that  they  fought  "fair",  that  is, 
each  man  depended  absolutely  on  his  skill  or  power 
of  endurance  without  resorting  to  weapons.  When 
they  had  a  fight,  that  settled  all,  for  no  one  was 
considered  a  man  if  he  did  not  take  the  conse- 
quences without  a  complaint  afterwards.  It  was 
a  rule  to  fight  in  the  open,  a  square  stand-up  fight 
and  to  fight  hard  and  when  one  hollowed  the  other 
was  to  pour  water  for  him  to  wash,  then  vice-versa. 

"On  one  occasion  a  couple  of  old  'cubs'  got  into 
a  fight.  They  'fibbed'  away  merrily  on  each  oth- 
er's ribs,  for  a  while,  stuck  out  viciously  for  the 
'bread  baskets',  handled  their  'mauleys'  dexter- 
ously, sent  in  'stingers'  on  'potato-traps',  'pasted' 
each  other  hotly  in  their  respective  'smellers',  after 
the  most  approved  style  of  the  fistic  art,  and  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  rule  of  the  'London  prize  ring'. 
At  last  one  got  the  head  of  the  other  in  'chancery' 
and  he  was  forced  to  cry  'enough'.  As  the  winner 
of  the  first  round  was  pouring  water  on  the  hands 
of  the  loser,  the  latter  said,  'Well,  you  have 
whipped  me,  but  I'll  bet  you  five  venison  hams 


PIONEER  DAYS  65 

that  my  wife  can  whip  your  wife.'  The  bet  was 
soon  taken  and  the  time  appointed  for  the  'set-to' 
between  the  women."  The  incident  ended  here,  for 
they  found  the  women  utterly  unwilling  to  make 
themselves  ridiculous  and  to  degrade  themselves 
in  such  a  manner. 


66  PIONEER  DAYS 

A  TRAPPER'S  PREDICAMENT. 

In  those  days  wild  turkeys  were  common  and 
people  often  caught  them  in  a  trap  called  a  turkey 
pen,  constructed  or  rather  built  as  follows:  With 
poles  they  would  build  a  pen  about  six  feet  square 
on  the  side  of  a  hill,  and  would  dig  a  ditch  about 
a  foot  deep  on  the  lower  side  running  up  into  the 
pen.  They  would  cover  it  with  poles  and  to  give 
it  a  forest-like  appearance  would  throw  brush 
around  it.  With  corn  scattered  profusely  in  the 
ditch,  the  turkeys  were  lured  up  into  the  pen,  but 
a  turkey  will  not  look  down  for  a  way  out  so  they 
are  caught.  A  man  named  Charles  Davis  built  one 
of  these  pens  and  going  to  it  one  morning,  found 
that  he  had  several  turkeys  in  it.  He  partly  re- 
moved the  cover  and  climbed  in.  The  frightened 
turkeys  made  a  lot  of  noise  and  attracted  a  hungry 
wolf.  It  did  not  see  Davis  and  it  came  bounding 
down  the  hill  and  into  the  pen  and  upon  him.  Im- 
agine the  scene  if  you  can — man,  wolf  and  turkeys 
all  wanting  out.  It  did  not  take  Davis  long  to  get 
busy.  Without  being  told,  he  opened  practically 
the  whole  top  of  the  pen  to  make  plenty  of  room 
and  wolf,  turkeys  and  man  all  escaped.  In  speak- 
ing of  the  incident  afterwards,  Davis  said,  "If  I 
hadn't  knocked  the  whole  kiver  off  that  ere  pen  I 
do  believe  that  blamed  wolf  would  have  killed  its 
fool  self."  We  naturally  wonder  if  the  man  would 
not  have  done  so  too. 


PIONEER  DAYS  67 


PIONEER  HASH. 

I  do  not  know  just  what  hash  is  made  of  and  I 
am  frank  to  say  that  I  do  not  believe  any  one  else 
does.  I  only  know  that  it  is  made  up  of  a  little  of 
everything.  As  you  read  on  you  shall  see  why  this 
article  is  thus  named. 

In  pioneer  days  it  was  a  common  custom  to  play 
pranks  on  each  other  that  would  be  taken  pretty 
seriously  now,  but  were  accepted  with  good  grace 
then.  In  what  is  now  Monroe  County  a  religious 
meeting  was  being  held  at  one  of  the  neighbor's 
homes,  a  small  cabin  with  only  one  window.  While 
they  were  all  down  on  their  knees  devoutly  in 
prayer,  a  boy  named  Lemen  threw  a  calf  in  at  the 
window.  In  doing  this  he  managed  to  extinguish 
the  only  candle  that  was  burning.  The  calf  began 
to  bawl  and  the  people  were  scared  almost  out  of 
their  wits.  The  women  were  screaming  and  thru- 
out  the  whole  situation  pandemonium  reigned. 
They  thought  the  "Evil  Spirit"  was  in  their  midst. 
Finally  the  caudle  was  lighted  and  there  it  was — 
only  a  calf.  (It  ought  to  be  added  here  that  Lemen 
was  of  a  large  and  respected  family  in  that  county 
and  in  later  years  he  became  a  power  for  good  in 
the  community.) 

In  those  days,  it  was  great  amusement  to  scare 
people  and  they  resorted  to  many  plans  to  do  so. 
People  were  superstitious  and  mortally  afraid  of 


68  PIONEER  DAYS 

ghosts.  In  one  instance  a  man  had  a  blaze-faced 
horse  named  Baldy,  but  it  died.  Some  boys  got 
into  his  chicken-roost  one  night  to  decoy  him  from 
the  house.  He  thought  it  was  an  owl  and  here  he 
came  in  his  night  clothes !  One  of  the  boys  got  be- 
tween him  and  the  house  and  had  on  what  was 
known  as  a  horse-head,  made  of  a  sheet.  The  man 
thought  it  was  Baldy 's  spirit  and  began  to  beg, 
"Oh,  Baldy,  you  know  I  was  good  to  you.  What 
do  you  want  ?  Go  away  and  leave  me,  Baldy, ' '  etc. 
The  boy,  seeing  he  took  matters  so  seriously  got  to 
one  side  to  allow  him  to  run  to  the  house,  but  the 
man  thought  no  more  of  this  earthly  home  and 
would  not  run.  He  finally  fainted  and  the  boys  had 
to  make  themselves  known.  The  boy  wearing  the 
horse-head  was  my  father. 

Things  that  seem  remarkable,  we  are  often  prone 
to  doubt.  It  scarcely  seems  credible  that  far  less 
than  a  hundred  years  ago,  that  the  whole  State 
was  overrun  with  wild  animals  that  preyed  upon 
the  crops,  the  poultry,  the  hogs,  the  sheep  and  the 
cattle  of  the  pioneers.  Even  the  people  were  not 
always  safe.  The  wolves  would  sometimes  attack 
a  herd  of  sheep  and  kill  several  at  a  time.  Deer 
would  go  in  droves  and  jump  into  a  field  of  corn 
at  night  and  destroy  a  large  part  of  it.  Opossums, 
raccoons  and  owls  were  enemies  of  the  chickens,  as 
well  as  were  also  the  hawk  and  the  eagle.  I  wish 
I  could  tell  you  the  story  with  the  same  flash  of 
the  eye  that  my  mother  used  to  tell  how  the  panther 


PIONEER  DAYS  69 

was  decoyed  from  his  den.  Panthers  are  afraid  of 
men  and  will  run  from  their  voices,  but  they  are 
attracted  by  the  voice  of  a  girl  or  a  woman. 
Whether  it  be  true  that  "Music  hath  charms  to 
soothe  the  savage  breast,"  I  do  not  know,  but  I  do 
know  that  often  my  mother  when  a  little  girl,  would 
ride  thru  the  forests  behind  her  father  and  sing 
in  order  that  he  might  get  a  shot  at  the  panther 
as  it  stealthily  approached  them.  Such  things  as 
this  were  not  considered  unusual  occurrences. 

I  remember  hearing  my  father  tell  that  when  he 
was  a  little  boy  down  in  Union  County  there  were 
lots  of  Indians  and  that  the  two  races  got  along  well 
together.  They  loaned  and  gave  to  each  other  and 
were  always  ready  to  help.  My  grandmother  gave 
milk  to  them,  but  one  day  an  unusual  thing  hap- 
pened. The  little  Indian  girl  fell  down  and  spilt 
the  milk.  She  then  returned  for  more  milk,  but  be- 
cause it  was  all  gone  she  had  to  return  with  her 
bucket  empty.  The  Indian  father  was  enraged  at 
this  apparent  stinginess  and  demanded  that  they 
milk  the  cow.  Finally,  being  convinced  that  the 
milk  was  not  to  be  gotten,,  he  wished  to  express  his 
apology  in  a  substantial  way  and  brought  over  a 
fresh  saddle  of  venison.  The  Indians  were  always 
ready  to  meet  you  more  than  half  way  either  in 
peace  or  war.  It  has  been  said  that  they  never  for- 
got an  enemy,  but  it  might  be  said  with  equal 
priety  that  they  never  forgot  a  friend. 


70  PIONEER  DAYS 


SONG  OF  THE  PIONEERS. 

A  song  for  the  early  times  out  west, 

And  our  green  old  forest  home, 
Whose  pleasant  memories  freshly  yet 

Across  the  bosom  come. 
A  song  for  the  free  and  gladsome  life, 

In  those  early  days  we  led, 
With  a  teeming  soil  beneath  our  feet, 

And  a  smiling  Heaven  overhead! 
Oh,  the  waves  of  life  danced  merrily, 

And  had  a  joyous  flow, 
In  the  days  when  we  were  Pioneers. 

Some  fifty  years  ago. 

The  hunt,  the  shot,  the  glorious  chase, 

The  captured  elk  or  deer; 
The  camp,  the  big  bright  fire,  and  then 

The  rich  and  wholesome  cheer; 
The  sweet  sound  sleep  at  dead  of  night, 

By  our  camp-fire  biasing  high — 
Unbroken  by  the  wolfs  long  howl, 

And  the  panther  springing  by. 
Oh,  merrily  passed  the  time  despite 

Our  wily  Indian  foe, 
In  the  days  when  we  were  Pioneers, 

Some  fifty  years  ago. 

We  felt  that  toe  were  fellow-men; 

We  felt  we  were  a  band, 
Sustained  here  in  the  wilderness 

By  Heaven's  upholding  hand, 
And  when  the  solemn  Sabbath  came, 

We  gathered  in  the  wood, 
And  lifted  up  our  hearts  in  prayer 


PIONEER  DAYS  71 

To  God  the  only  good. 
Our  temples  then  were  earth  and  sky — 

None  other  did  we  know, 
In  the  days  when  we  were  Pioneers 

Some  fifty  years  ago. 

Our  forest  life  was  rough  and  rude, 

And  dangers  closed  us  round; 
But  here  amid  the  green  old  trees, 

Freedom  was  sought  and  found. 
Oft  thru  our  dwellings  wintry  blasts 

Would  rush  with  shriek  and  moan; 
We  cared  not,  tho  they  were  out  frail, 

We  felt  they  were  our  own. 
Oh,  free  and  manly  lives  we  led, 

'Mid  verdure  or  'mid  snow, 
In  the  days  when  we  were  Pioneers, 

Some  fifty  years  ago. 

But  now  our  course  of  life  is  short, 

And  as,  fro<m  day  to  day, 
We're  walking  on  with  halting  step, 

And  fainting  by  the  way, 
Another  land  more  bright  than  this, 

To  our  dim  sight  appears, 
And  on  our  way  to  it  we'll  soon 

Again  be  Pioneers; 
Yet,  while  we  linger,  we  may  all 

A  backward  glance  still  throw, 
To  the  days  when  we  were  Pioneers, 

Some  fifty  years  ago. 

BY  WILLIAM  D.  GALLAGHER, 

Published  in  an  Atlas  of  Jackson  County,  111.,  in  1878. 


72  PIONEER  DAYS 


A  PIONEER  VOCABULARY. 

Some  of  these  words  were  introduced  from  the 
old  home  and  were  never  in  common  use,  but  they 
were  used  by  the  pioneers  in  some  localities.  Others 
were  improper  forms  or  pronunciations  of  other 
words  but  were  common  enough  to  justify  inserting 
them  here.  Still  others  were  new  words  which 
originated  out  of  the  necessities  of  pioneer  life  and 
went  out  of  use  with  the  introduction  of  new  sur- 
roundings. No  attempt  is  made  to  make  a  complete 
list  of  words  peculiar  to  pioneer  life,  but  to  give 
only  a  few  words  and  phrases  which  they  used  and 
which  have  now  practically  gone  out  of  use. 

Ash-hopper,  a  sort  of  hopper  made  by  setting 
clap-boards  about  three  feet  long  into  a  trough 
three  or  four  feet  long,  leaving  the  upper  end  of 
the  boards  to  extend  about  thirty  degrees  from  a 
perpendicular  so  as  to  make  the  two  sides  meet  in 
the  trough,  forming  an  angle  of  about  sixty  de- 
grees. The  ends  were  built  in  with  other  boards. 
The  hopper  was  then  filled  with  wood  ashes  and 
kept  dry  until  they  wanted  to  use  it.  The  pioneer 
woman  poured  water  over  it  to  make  lye,  which  was 
used  to  make  soap. 

Back-log1,  a  cut  of  a  log  a  foot  or  more  in  diam- 
eter to  put  in  the  back  of  a  fire-place  in  making  a 
fire. 


PIONEER  DAYS  73 

Boot-jack,  a  piece  of  plank  eighteen  inches  or 
two  feet  in  length  with  an  opening  in  one  end 
which  would  just  fit  the  boot  heel.  It  was  used  to 
pull  the  boots  off. 

Brace  of  ducks,  two  dead  ducks  tied  together  to 
make  them  more  easily  carried. 

Buck-skin  Breeches,  trousers  made  of  the  hide  of 
a  buck,  worn  with  the  hairy  side  in  during  cold 
weather  and  the  other  way  during  summer. 

Bullet-mould,  a  small  iron  instrument  used  by 
the  pioneers  to  mould  bullets  for  their  rifles. 

Cabin,  a  small  log-house  made  by  building  the 
logs  together  like  a  pen  and  covered  with  clap- 
boards. 

Candle-moulds,  moulds  made  of  tin  into  which 
tallow  was  poured  to  make  candles. 

Candle-snips,  an  instrument  something  like  scis- 
sors to  trim  the  charred  ends  of  the  wick  in  a 
candle. 

Clap-board,  broad,  thin  pieces  of  timber  made  by 
cutting  a  log  into  cuts  from  two  to  five  feet  long 
and  then  splitting  them.  The  blocks  were  split  into 
eighths  and  then  the  points  were  split  off  and  dis- 
carded. This  was  called  bolting  and  the  parts  were 
called  bolts.  The  bolts  were  then  rived  or  split 
into  boards  with  a  frow.  It  was  quite  an  art  to 
make  good  boards. 

Cards,  a  pair  of  wire  brushes  about  six  by  nine 
inches,  used  in  working  wool  into  strings.  This 
was  called  carding. 


74  PIONEER  DAYS 

Chinking1,  blocks  or  slivers  of  wood  used  to  fill 
the  cracks  in  the  walls  of  a  cabin. 

Civilized  meat,  an  expression  used  to  distinguish 
pork  and  beef  from  venison  or  the  meat  of  other 
wild  animals. 

Cradle,  an  instrument  made  for  cutting  wheat. 
It  had  a  snead  or  handle  about  four  feet  long,  prop- 
erly curved,  a  blade  and  four  fingers,  each  about 
three  feet  long,  set  at  right  angles  to  the  handle 
with  the  fingers  in  such  a  position  as  to  catch  the 
grain  as  it  fell  from  the  blade.  A  strong  man  could 
cut  and  swath  about  three  acres  in  a  day. 

Crane,  a  hook  put  in  the  fire-place  to  hang  pots 
and  kettles  over  the  fire.  They  sometimes  hung 
meat  on  it  to  roast  it. 

Critter.  Pioneers  often  referred  to  their  horses 
as  critters.  The  word  is  a  corruption  of  the  word, 
creatures. 

Dinner-horn,  a  horn  used  to  call  the  farmers  from 
the  field. 

Dog-iron,  another  name  for  andiron  or  firedog. 
They  were  used  to  keep  the  wood  from  falling  out 
of  the  fire-place. 

Drap,  an  incorrect  pronunciation  of  drop,  e.g.,  I 
just  drapped  in  to  see  you  a  minute,  or,  The  chil- 
dren drap  the  corn. 

Drinking-gourd,  a  gourd  with  a  portion  grown 
out  like  a  dipper  handle  and  with  one  side  of  it  cut 
away  so  as  to  make  it  like  a  dipper.  One  was  usu- 


PIONEER  DAYS  75 

ally  kept  at  the  well.  They  held  from  one  to  three 
pints  and  would  last  a  long  time. 

Fence-worm,  the  first  rail  of  each  panel  of  a  rail 
fence.  They  were  built  zig-zag  to  enable  them  to 
cross  the  rails  at  the  ends.  It  was  not  an  easy  job 
to  lay  a  fence-worm. 

Fifth  Quarter,  the  hide  and  tallow  of  a  beef.  It 
was  sometimes  given  to  an  expert  rifleman  at  a 
shooting  match  in  order  to  appease  him  for  being 
ruled  out  of  the  game. 

Fire-place,  a  large  opening  in  a  chimney  where  a 
fire  may  be  built. 

Flint-lock,  a  gun  arranged  so  that  a  piece  of  steel 
would  strike  fire  from  a  piece  of  flint  and  thus  ig- 
nite the  powder. 

Frow  (fro),  an  instrument  with  a  blade  about 
sixteen  inches  long  and  having  a  handle  about  the 
same  length,  set  at  right  angles.  It  was  used  in 
riving  clap-boards. 

Gee,  a  word  to  a  horse  telling  him  to  turn  to  the 
right.  The  opposite  is  haw. 

Galluses,  suspenders. 

Grease-lamp,  in  use  more  than  two  thousand 
years  ago.  It  consisted  of  a  dish  of  some  kind  con- 
taining grease  and  a  cotton  string  for  a  wick.  Fire 
was  applied  to  the  end  of  the  wick  hanging  over 
the  side  of  the  vessel.  By  capillary  attraction,  the 
grease  was  drawn  up  and  burned,  making  a  fairly 
good  light. 


76  PIONEER  DAYS 

Glitter  (grater),  a  common  article  made  by 
punching  holes  in  a  piece  of  tin  and  attaching  it  to 
a  board,  making  a  segment  of  a  cylinder  with  the 
rough  side  of  the  tin  outside.  It  was  used  for 
grating  corn. 

Hand-spike,  a  lever  five  or  six  feet  long  with 
both  ends  smooth,  used  to  carry  logs,  a  man  lifting 
at  each  end  of  the  hand-spike,  with  the  log  in  the 
middle.  At  log-rollings,  two  or  three  were  used 
under  the  same  log.  It  was  a  great  feat  to  pull 
everybody  else  down  with  a  hand-spike. 

Horse-power,  now  a  unit  by  which  power  is  meas- 
ured. Then  it  meant  a  machine  to  which  horses 
were  hitched  so  as  to  go  around  in  a  circle  and 
furnish  power  for  grist  mills,  saw  mills,  etc. 

Indian-summer,  a  period  of  mild  weather  in  the 
late  autumn  or  the  early  winter,  usually  character- 
ized by  a  cloudless  sky  and  a  hazy,  smoky-like 
horizon.  It  is  of  uncertain  origin,  but  tradition 
says  it  is  the  time  that  Indians  burned  the  leaves 
and  gathered  nuts. 

Johnny-board,  a  smooth  board  to  put  dough  on 
before  the  fire  to  bake  bread.  It  was  probably  a 
corruption  of  Journey-board,  a  name  given  to  it 
because  they  used  it  when  they  were  moving. 

Johnny-cake,  a  cake  of  bread  made  on  the  john- 
ny-board. 

Latch-string,  a  string  which  extended  from  the 
door-latch  upward  and  out  thru  a  hole  in  such  a 


PIONEER  DAYS  77 

manner  as  to  permit  the  latch  to  be  lifted  with  it 
while  it  hung  out.  If  the  latch-string  hung  out, 
visitors  were  welcome  to  enter,  hence  the  expres- 
sion, "the  latch-string  hangs  out,"  when  we  mean 
to  say  you  are  welcome. 

Lead,  the  horse  on  the  left  in  a  two-horse  team. 
It  is  sometimes  called  the  "near"  horse.  The  other 
is  the  "off"  horse. 

Line  a  hymn.  Song  books  were  scarce,  so  the 
preacher  would  read  a  line  of  a  song,  then  they 
would  sing  it,  then  he  would  read  another  and  so 
on  thru  the  song.  This  was  called  "lining  a  hymn." 

Loom,  a  large  machine,  usually  home  made,  used 
for  weaving  cloth,  carpets,  etc. 

Linsey-woolsey,  a  kind  of  woolen  dress,  all  home 
made. 

Lizard,  a  piece  of  timber  cut  out  of  the  fork  of  a 
tree  and  made  into  a  sort  of  a  sled,  used  in  drag- 
ging logs. 

Log-rolling.  In  the  winter  the  farmers  would 
clear  the  ground,  i.e.,  they  cut  the  timber  off  and  in 
the  spring  the  neighbors  met  and  rolled  and  piled 
the  logs  to  burn.  This  meeting  was  called  a  log- 
rolling. 

Mast,  the  crop  of  acorns,  nuts,  etc.,  that  fell  from 
the  forest  trees  in  the  autumn.  Hogs  were  allowed 
to  run  at  large  and  were  fattened  on  it. 


78  PIONEER  DAYS 

Mourner 's-bench,  the  front  seat  of  a  church 
where  those  who  were  sorry  for  their  sins  were 
urged  to  come  to  be  prayed  for. 

Muster-day,  a  day  set  apart  for  all  the  men  to 
gather  together  and  practice  military  drill.  (See 
"Waller's  History  of  Illinois.) 

Pillion,  a  sort  of  saddle  or  cushion  for  a  lady,  to 
be  put  on  a  horse  behind  a  man's  saddle.  It  was 
the  custom  for  a  young  man  to  take  his  best  girl 
on  the  horse  behind  him. 

Plew,  a  whole  hide  of  an  animal. 

Plow-line,  a  rope  used  in  directing  the  horse  it. 
plowing. 

Pounder,  a  weight  used  in  pounding  grain.  They 
varied  in  weight  from  one  pound  to  several  pounds. 
Sometimes  it  was  a  large  round  pebble  but  usually 
it  was  made  of  wood. 

Puncheon,  a  piece  of  log  six  or  eight  feet  long, 
split  open,  the  round  side  notched  and  the  other 
smoothed,  used  in  making  floors,  etc. 

Powder  horn,  a  cow's  horn  in  which  powder  was 
carried  on  a  hunt. 

Quill-pen,  a  writing  pen  made  of  goose  quills.  It 
was  a  great  point  in  favor  of  a  teacher  to  be  able 
to  make  a  good  pen. 

Reel,  an  instrument  used  in  getting  yarn  ready 
to  knit. 

Saddle  of  venison,  two  hams  of  venison  not  cut 
apart. 


PIONEER  DAYS  79 

Salt  gourd,  a  gourd  in  which  salt  was  kept.  It 
usually  had  an  opening  in  the  upper  part  of  one 
side  and  was  hung  up  by  the  stem. 

Shaving-horse,  a  bench  with  a  vise  arranged  to 
operate  by  the  feet.  It  was  used  to  hold  a  piece  of 
timber  while  it  was  being  shaved  or  whittled  down 
with  a  drawing-knife. 

Shine  a  coon.  This  meant  to  get  into  such  a  po- 
sition that  a  raccoon  which  the  dogs  had  "treed" 
(found  in  a  tree)  would  be  exactly  between  the 
hunter  and  the  moon.  A  good  marksman  could 
shoot  toward  the  moon  and  get  the  raccoon. 

Shine  a  deer.  This  meant  to  build  a  fire  in  the 
woods  at  night  and  wait  for  a  deer  to  come  up  so 
that  the  light  shining  in  the  eyes  of  a  deer  could 
be  seen.  The  deer  was  shy  and  stayed  a  long  dis- 
tance away,  but  a  good  marksman  could  get  them. 

Sley,  an  instrument  for  the  warp  to  go  thru  in  a 
loom. 

Shot-pouch,  a  leather  pouch  swung  around  the 
shoulders,  used  in  carrying  shot  while  out  hunting. 

Spinning  wheel,  a  wheel  driving  a  spindle  which 
the  women  used  in  spinning  yarn  after  it  was 
"carded,"  i.e.,  made  into  loose  strands  with  the 
cards. 

Trencher,  a  wooden  dish,  something  very  com- 
mon. 

Trundle-bed,  a  low  bed  on  wheels.     It  was  run 


80  PIONEER  DAYS 

under  another  bed  in  the  day  time  and  brought 
out  at  night.  It  was  for  the  children. 

Turn  of  milling.  After  mills  were  established, 
pioneers  took  wheat  and  corn  to  the  mill  to  be 
ground  for  "bread-stuff".  It  probably  was  three 
bushels  of  wheat  and  three  bushels  of  corn,  but  no 
definite  authority  can  be  found  as  to  that.  Some 
say  it  meant  just  half  that  much. 

Venison,  deer  made  into  meat. 

Warping  bars,  a  frame  having  a  large  number  of 
spools,  used  to  get  the  "warp"  or  threads  of  even 
length  before  they  were  woven  into  a  carpet  or 
piece  of  cloth. 

Well-sweep,  a  pole  with  a  heavy  end  hung  across 
the  top  of  an  upright  fork  in  such  a  position  that 
the  weight  of  the  heavy  end  would  lift  a  bucket  of 
water  out  of  a  well  with  the  light  end. 

Whip-saw,  a  saw  used  by  the  pioneers  in  sawing 
lumber.  The  log  was  placed  on  a  frame  so  that 
one  man  could  get  under  and  pull  the  saw  straight 
down.  Another  man  would  then  pull  it  up.  Thus 
the  process  was  continued  something  after  the  man- 
ner of  using  a  cross-cut  saw. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 


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